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LETTERS FROM HIGH LATITUDES. 




THE EARL OF DUFFERIN. 



A YACHT VOYAGE. 



Letters from High Latititdes 

BEING SOME ACCOUNT OF A VOYAGE, IN 1856, 
IN THE SCHOONER YACHT ''FOAM:' 



ICELAND, JAN MAYEN, AND SPITZBERGEN. 



BY LORD DUFFERIN (^vai\^c^.. 



GOVERNOR GENERAL OF THE DOMINION OF CANADA. 





NEW YORK : 

R. WORTHINGTON, 750 BROADWAY. 



1873. 






Bat since it pleased a vanished eye; 
I go to plant it on his tomb, 
That if it can, it there may bloom, 

Or dying — there at least may die-" 



"He, 
To whom a thousand memories callj 
Not being less, but more than all 
The gentleness he seemed to be, 

So wore his outward best, and joined 
Each office of the social hour 
To noble manners, as the flower 
And native growth of noble mind." 



in JMemoriam. 



TO 

"THAT TRUE NORTH," 

I DEDICATE 
THIS EDITION. 



" Witness, too, the silent cry, 
The prayer of many a race, and creed, and clime, 
Thunderless lightnings striking under sea 
From sunset to sunrise of all thy realm, 
And tliat true North." 



PREFACE TO THIRD EDITION. 



'T^HAT an Universal Language would infinitely multiply 
the moral and material forces of mankind, is an idea as 
old as the story of Babel ; for it is evident that with such 
a medium, those waves of thought and conviction, upon 
whose rapid and ubiquitous propagation depend the pro- 
gress of our species, would permeate the world with the 
instantaneous energy of an electric shock, communicating 
irresistible intensity to all human effort. But is not the 
punishment pronounced on man's primeval presumption, 
in the course of reversal ? Whatever may be the future 
fate of the kingdoms, states, and empires founded by 
the British race, the edict has already gone forth which 
constitutes our Mother tongue the common language 
of the chief portion of the earth. From the Arctic Circle 
to the Gulf of Mexico, along the Western, Southern, and 
Eastern seaboards of Africa, throughout the peninsula 
of India, in the ports of China and Japan, amongst the 
islands of the Pacific Archipelago, and on the Australian 
continent, the English language already reigns supreme. 
In another fifty years, the English-speaking population of 
North America alone will number more than one hundred 
million souls, whose merchant fleets will whiten the two 



vi PREFACE TO THIRD EDITION. 

adjacent oceans, while those of their Australian brethren 
crowd all the Southern seas. What may not be expected 
from the exertions of such a civilization, itself the heir of 
all the ages, — thus unified by the possession of a common 
language, a common literature, analogous political institu- 
tions, the ties of kinsmanship, and a traditional affection! 

But it is to the writer of English books that such a pros- 
pect is most exhilarting. An author's public is as the breath 
of his nostrils ; his fame is fed by numbers, and the incre- 
ment of mankind, ensures his immortality. As he glances 
down the vista of futurity he feels like the actor watching 
through a hole in a curtain the grateful overflow of a ben- 
efit audience along the boxes, pit, and stalls, into the waste 
places and ultimate recesses of his theatre. It is true the 
fulness of this joy belongs only to the leading performers; 
but even the walking gentleman — and to no higher analogy 
does the present writer pretend — feels a humble pride in 
the triumphs thus preparing for his more illustrious col- 
leagues, nay, may find consolation in the thought that his 
own part, however insignificant, is not to be played before 
empty benches. Though he receive or deserve but scant 
attention from the audience as a whole, the scattered 
crumbs of approbation which may fall from amid an infini- 
tude of spectators, will furnish forth, he trusts, what in 
the sum may prove sufficient material for a very respect- 
able reputation. 

It is in some such kindred hope that the author now 
watches his little book being introduced at the instance of 
its present publishers to the notice of the inhabitants of 



PREFACE TO THIRD EDITION. vii 

the United States. It has already received in England the 
modest share of patronage to which it was entitled. In 
Canada other causes have secured for it more attention 
than it could have claimed on its own merits. If it should 
be fortunate enough to attract the favor or amuse the 
lighter hours of his Republican neighbors, his ambition will 
be more than satisfied j for not only will he feel that his 
work has been permanently dom.iciled amid the expanding 
hterature of the American continent, but that he has also 
contributed, however infinitesimally, to the pleasure of 
those from so many of whose countrymen he has received 
both in his public and private capacity unusual marks of 
courtesy and kindness. 



PREFACE ESPECIALLY WRITTEN FOR THE 
CANADIAN EDITION. 



A CYNIC has suggested that after a certain interval the 
return to life of our dearest relative might often occasion 
as much perplexity as pleasure. 

However harshly this sentiment may grate on the ears of 
Constancy, I confess to a kindred feeling of embarrassment in 
being suddenly confronted, after so many years, with the alien 
self that reappears in the following pages ; but I am told that the 
friendly community with which I am now connected, and with 
whose fortunes my own are temporarily interwoven, may be 
disposed to take an interest in the youthful yachting experiences 
of their present Governor General. 

But for this I should never have had the hardihood to appear as 
an author before the public of this Continent, whose geograph- 
ical position and fiscal arrangements enable its inhabitants to 
skim the cream from the literature of Europe, without troubling 
themselves either with its sedimentary deposits, or the irritating 
restrictions of its copyrights. Once indeed through the " enter- 
prise " of a transatlantic Editor, whose nationality shall be name- 
less, a mutilated issue of these " Letters " obtained an ephemeral 
publicity in a provincial serial, but in spite of my spirited impresario 
having prefaced his piracy by the assertion that " he had 
commissioned a British Lord at a handsome salary" to discover 
the North Pole " and to furnish his Magazine with "an account 
of his adventures," confirmed as it was by such a transfiguration 
of the dates, tenses, and superscriptions in my narrative as 
might best color this ingenious fiction — the speculation must 
have proved a financial failure, as no per centage on his profits 
has hitherto reached my hands. 



X PREFACE. 

Notwithstanding this discouraging experience, I am still in 
hopes that the Canadian reader, apart from any personal interest 
with which he may regard the author, will not grudge an 
occasional half-hour to a description of those out-land countries 
that share with his Dominion the Aurora's ruby affluence; and 
are wrapped by winter in the same silver mantle as his own; 
whose early mariners — 500 years before Columbus — swept 
through the gulfs of his St. Lawrence, and struck the headlands 
of his Acadie ; and whose modern inhabitants, in the simplicity 
of their lives, in the nobleness of their courtesy, in the freedom 
of their pohtical institutions, and in their masculine energy 
exemphfy and prefigure within their lesser limits the qualities, 
virtues, and attainments proper to a great Northern people. 

And here I should be disposed to end my brief apology for 
this Edition, were it not that I am tempted to seize the oppor- 
tunity of answering a question that has been frequently put to 
me — " What has become of Wilson ? " 

This kind and faithful servant remained with me for many 
years after my return from the North, environed by something 
of an heroic halo in the eyes of the ladies of his acquaintance, 
and of the public whom he frequented. He subsequently 
accompanied me on an eighteen months' cruise to the Mediter- 
ranean, as well as on my visit to Syria as British Commissioner, 
but neither the sunshine of the South nor the glitter of the parti- 
colored East, mercurialized the melancholy of his tem.perament. 
In the congenial atmosphere of the graveyards of Egypt he 
displayed indeed a transient sprightHness, which the occasional 
exhumation of a mummy, and such traffic with the dead and 
their appurtenances as my excavations at Thebes afforded him, 
stimulated into spasms of hilarity. 

Of the Pyramids he was disposed to think but lightly, until 
informed that they had served for sepulchres ; but on quitting 
the heights of Gizeh I observed that he had selected two skulls 
as the appropriate memorials of his visit. With his brows 
bound in the folds of a yellow turban, a striped Arab mantle 
enveloping his person, and seated on a donkey, these fleshless 
countenances grinning from under either arm, — his own, the 
least jovial of the three, — he presented, I confess, something of 
a weird and ghoul-hke appearance as, wending round the ran- 



PREFACE. xi 

sacked tombs of the Pharaohs, we passed to our boats through 
the purple haze of evening. 

He continued to the end to solemnize his announcements 
with phrases of dolorous import. One day at Thebes I was 
lying in my berth prostrate with a feverish attack, my nerves in 
that impressionable state peculiar to sickness in a tropical 
climate ; suddenly Wilson enters the cabin and proclaims in his 
hollow tones, "If you please, my Lord, the Corpse is come 
aboard ! " by which dignified but depressing title he was pleased 
to designate a mummy which my people had just brought down 
from a rock-temple I had recently discovered. 

His bedside visits, however, were not always so innocuous. 
On our arrival at Beirut some months afterwards, we found a 
traveller at the hotel stricken with Syrian fever — a disease 
which seldom pardons. The patient's life hung by a thread. 
The doctors had enjoined the most absolute quiet, and every 
inmate of the house passed his door breathless and on tiptoe. 
One kind lady, who had constituted herself his nurse, was 
allowed to visit him. But on an unlucky Sunday afternoon she 
was absent for a brief half hour at Church. 

Forthwith Wilson stole upon his victim, and gliding into a chair 
at the bed-head, whispered forth at intervals these sentences of 
dole : " Well, sir ! you do look bad ! " " S3Tian fever, I under- 
stand, sir .? " " Ah ! they say people don't recover from Syrian 
fever." " I am Wilson, sir." " The Wilson ! " with which 
ghostlike revelation of his identity he concluded his dismal 
Avatar, the particulars of which the sick man happily survived 
to relate. 

I could multiply these paragraphs by the relation of a hundred 
similar traits of miy poor follower's saturnine humor. It would be 
more difficult to give an adequate idea of his kindness and 
affectionate serviceableness, his resolution in danger, his versa- 
tility of resource, and unassailable integrity ; only those who 
have travelled much in wild countries can understand what an 
infinite enhancement of one's pleasure, comfort and security, is 
born of such faithful comradeship. If every now and then I 
have endeavored to enliven my story with glimpses of the share 
my poor servant took in our daily life, the reader will feel that 
a loving hand has guided the pencil. To this day I never 



xii PREFACE. 

prepare for a journey without a sigh of regret for my lost 
travelling companion. 

Some time after our return to England, Wilson's health 
became affected by an obscure disease, which subsequently 
developed very distressing symptoms, and after much suffering, 
borne with great patience, he died in the Hospital for incurables 
at Wimbledon. 

Ottawa, Ont., 1S73. 



DRAMATIS PERSONS. 



SiGURDR, Son ^JoNAS, Icelander ; Law Student. 

Charles E. Fitzgerald, Surgeon; Photographer ; Birtanist. 

Lord Dufferin, Navigator ; Sagaman ; Artist. 

William Wilson, Valet; Gardener; Cape Colonist. 

Albert Grant, Steward ; Watchmaker ; Bird-stiiffer. 

John Bevis, First Cook; afterzvards Ducrow. 

William Webster, Second Cook; Carpenter ; late of Her Majesty's Fa-. 

Giiards ; afterwards Maid Marian. 
Ebenezer Wyse, Master ; Californian Gold-digger. 
William Leverett, Mate. 
William Taylor, Butcher. 
Charles Parne, \ 
Thomas Scarlett, 
Thomas Pilcher, \ Seamen. 
Henry Leverett, 
John Lock, 
William Wynhall, Ship-boy. 
Voice of a Frejich Captain. 
A German Gnat-catcher. 
An early Village Cock. 
A Goat. 

An Icelandic Fox. 
A White Bear. 

Ladies and Cavaliers of the Icelandic, Norse, Lappish, a/z^/ French 
tongues., 

SCENE. — Sometimes on board the "Foam," sometimes in Iceland, Spitz- 
BERGEN, and Norway. 



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. 



FAQS 

Portrait Frontispiece 

Wilson 48 

Snorro. 51 

The Lake OF Thingvalla 55 

Plain of Thingvalla 57 

Ground Plan of Thingvalla 59 

The Althing 63 

Thingvaela , 65 

The Great Geys:ir 7S 

Sketch of Waterworks 86 

An Icelandic Lady 105 

Remains of Basaltic Dykes no 

Taking a Sight 147 

Mountains of Norway 149, 150 

First Glimpse of Jan Maven 151 

The Icelandic Fox i63 

A Lapp Lady 1 66 

A Lapp Lady's Bonnet 167 

In the Ice 1S9 

Sigurdr r94 

The Midnight Sun off Spitzbergen 199 

" The Girls at Home hwe got hold of the Tow-Rope" 225 

xiv 



CONTENTS. 



LETTER I. 
Protesilaus Stumbles on the Threshold i 

LETTER II. 
The Icelander — A modern Sir Patrick Spens 2 

LETTER III. 
Loch Goil — The Saga of Clan Campbell 4 

LETTER IV. 

Through the Sounds— Stornaway— The Setting up Of The Figure-Head 
— Fitz's Foray — " Oh weel may the boatie row, that wins the Bairns' 
bread " — Sir Patrick Spens joins — Up Anchor '. g 

LETTER V. 
The North Atlantic — Spanish Waves — Our Cabin in a Gale — Sea-Sick- 
ness from a Scientific Point of View — Wilson — A Passenger Com- 
mits Suicide — First Sight of Iceland — Floki of the Ravens — The 
Norse Mayflower — Faxa Fiord — We Land in Thule 14 

LETTER VL 

Reykjavik — Latin Conversation — I become the Proprietor of Twenty-six 
Horses — Eider Ducks — Bessestad — Snorro Sturleson — The Old 
Greenland Colony — Finland — A Genoese Skipper in the Fifteenth 
Century — An Icelandic Dinner — Skoal — An After-Dinner Speech in 
Latin — Winged Rabbits — Ducrow — Start of the Baggage-Train 23 

LETTER VII. 
Kisses — Wilson on Horseback — A Lava Plateau — Thingvalla — Almanna- 
gia — Rabnagia — Our Tent — The Shivered Plain — Witch-Drowning — 
A ParHamentary Debate, A. D. 1000 — Thangbrand the Missionary — 
A German Gnat-Catcher — The Mystical Mountains — Sir Olaf — Heck- 
la — Skapta Jokul — The Fire Deluge of 1783 — We reach the Geysir 
— Strokr — Fitz's Bonne Fortune — More Kisses — An Eruption — 



xvi CONTENTS, 



Prince Napoleon — Return — Trade — Population — A Mutiny — The 
" Reine Hortense " — The Seven Dutchmen — A Ball — Low Dresses 
— Northward Ho ! 49 

LETTER VIIL 
Start from Reykjavik — Snaefell — The Lady of Froda — A Berserk Trage- 
dy — The Champion of Breidavik — Gnunder Fiord— The Last Night — 
Crossing the Arctic Circle — Fete on board the " Reine Hortense " 
— Le Pere Arctique — We Fall in with the Ice — The " Saxon " 
Disappears — Mist — A Parting in a Lonely Spot — Jan Mayen — 
Mount Beerenberg — An Unpleasant position — Shift of Wind and 
Extrication — "To Norroway over the Faem" — A Nasty Coast — 
Hammerfest log 

LETTER IX. 
Extract from the " Moniteur " of the 31st July , 153 

LETTER X. 
Bucolics — The Goat — Maid Marian — A Lapp Lady — Lapp Love-Making 
—The Sea-Horseman — The Gulf Stream — Arctic Currents — A Dingy 
Expedition — A School of Peripatetic Fishes — Alten — The Chate- 
laine of Kaafiord — Still Northward Ho ! 162 

LETTER XL 
We Sail for Bear Island, and Spitzenbergen — Cherie Island — Barentz — 
Sir Hugh Willoughby — Parry's Attempt to reach the North Pole — 
Again amongst the Ice — Ice-Blink — First Sight of Spitzbergen — 
Wilson — Decay of our Hopes — Constant Struggle with the Ice — 
We Reach the 80° N. lat. — A Freer Sea — We Land in Spitzber- 
gen— Enghsh Bay — Lady Edith's Glacier — A Midnight Photograph 
— No Reindeer to be seen — Et Ego In Arctis — Winter in Spitzen- 
bergen — Ptarmigan — The Bear-Saga — The " Foam " Monument — 
Southwards — Sight the Greenland Ice — A Gale — Wilson on the 
Malstrom — Breakers Ahead — Roost — Taking a Sight — Throndhjem 182 

LETTER XIL 
Throndlijem — Harald Haarfager — King Hacon's Last Battle — Olaf Trygg- 
vesson — The "Long Serpent" — St, Clave — Thormod the Scald — 
The Jarl of Lade— The Cathedral— Harald Hardrada— The battle 
of Stanford Bridge — A Norse Ball — Odin — And his Paladins 229 

LETTER Xin. 
Copenhagen— Bergen — The Black Death— Sigurdr — Homewards 257 



LETTERS 
FROM HIGH LATITUDES, 



LETTER I. 



PROTESILAUS STUMBLES ON THE THRESHOLD. 

Glasgow, Monday, June 3, 1S56. 

Our start has not been prosperous. Yesterday evening, 
on passing Carlisle, a telegraphic message was put into my 
hand, announcing the fact of the ^' Foam^' having been 
obliged to put into Holyhead, in consequence of the sudden 
illness of my Master. As the success of our expedition 
entirely depends on our getting off before the season is 
further advanced, you can understand how disagreeable it 
is to have received this check at its very outset. As yet, 
of course, I know nothing of the nature of the illness with 
which he has been seized. However, I have ordered the 
schooner to proceed at once to Oban, and I have sent back 
the Doctor to Holyhead to overhaul the sick man. It is 
rather early in the day for him to enter upon the exercise 
of his functions. 



LETTER IT. 



THE ICELANDER — A MODERN SIR PATRICK SPENS. 

Greenock, Tuesday, June 3, 1856. 

I found the Icelander awaiting my arrival here, — pacing 
up and down the coifee-room like a Polar bear. 

At first he was a little shy, and, not having yet had much 
opportunity of practising his English, it was some time be- 
fore I could set him perfectly at his ease. He has some- 
thing so frank and honest in his face and bearing, that I 
am certain he will turn out a pleasant companion. There 
being no hatred so intense as that which you feel towards 
a disagreeable shipmate, this assurance has relieved me of 
a great anxiety, and I already feel I shall hereafter reckon 
Sigurdr (pronounced Segurthur), the son of Jonas, among 
the number of my best friends. 

As most educated English people firmly believe the Ice- 
landers to be a " Squawmuck," blubber-eating, seal-skin- 
clad race, I think it right to tell you that Sigurdr is ap- 
parelled in good broadcloth, and all the inconveniences of 
civilization, his costume culminating in the orthodox chim- 
ney-pot of the nineteenth century. He is about twenty- 
seven, very intelligent-looking, and — all women would 
think — lovely to behold. A high forehead, straight, deli- 
cate features, dark blue eyes, auburn hair and beard, and 

the complexion of — Lady S d ! His early life was 

passed in Iceland ; but he is now residing at Copenhagen 
as a law student. Through the introduction of a mutual 



II.] SIR PATRICK. 3 

friend, he has been induced to come with me, and do us 
the honors of his native land. 

" O whar will I get a skeely skipper, 
To sail this gude ship o' mine ? " 

Such, alas ! has been the burden of my song for these last 
four-and-twenty hours, as I have sat in the Tontine Tower, 
drinking the bad port wine ; for, after spending a fortune 
in telegraphic messages to Holyhead, it has been decided 

that B cannot come on, and I have been forced to rig 

up a Glasgow merchant skipper into a jury sailing-master. 

Any such arrangement is, at the best, unsatisfactory ; 
but to abandon the cruise is the only alternative. How- 
ever, considering I had but a few hours to look about me, 
I have been more fortunate than might have been expected. 
I have had the luck to stumble on a young fellow, very 
highly recommended by the Captain of the Port. He re- 
turned just a fortnight ago from a trip to Australia, and, 
having since married a wife, is naturally anxious not to lose 
this opportunity of going to sea again for a few months. 

I start to-morrow for Oban, via Inverary, which I wish 
to show to my Icelander. At Oban I join the schooner, 
and proceed to Stornaway, in the Hebrides ; whither the 
undomestic Mr. Ebenezer Wyse (a descendant, probably, 
of some W'estland Covenanter) is to follow me by ilia 
steamer. 



LETTER TIT. 



LOCH GUIL THE SAGA OF CLAN CAMPBELL. 

Oban, June 5, 1856. 

I have seldom enjoyed anything so much as our journey 
yesterday. Getting clear at last of the smells, smoke, noise 
and squalor of Greenock, to plunge into the very heart of 
the Highland hills, robed as they were in the sunshine of a 
beautiful summer day, was enough to make one beside one- 
self with delight ; and the Icelander enjoyed it as much as 
I did. Having crossed the Clyde, alive with innumerable 
vessels, its waves dancing and sparkling in the sunlight, 
we suddenly shot into the still and solemn Loch Goil, 
whose waters, dark with mountain shadows, seemed almost 
to belong to a different element from that of the yellow, 
rushing, ship-laden river we had left. In fact, in the space 
of ten minutes, we had got into another world, centuries 
remote from the steaming, weaving, delving Britain, south 
of Clyde. 

After a sail of about three hours, we reached the head 
of the loch, and then took coach along the worst mountain 
road in Europe, towards the country of the world-invading 
Campbells. A steady pull of three hours more, up a wild 
bare glen, brought us to the top of the mica-slate ridge 
which pens up Loch Fyne, on its western side, and dis- 
closed what I have always thought the loveliest scene in 
Scotland. 

Far below at our feet, and stretching away on eithei 



III.] A LORDLY HOUSE. 5 

hand among the mountains, lay the blue waters of the 
lake. 

On its other side, encompassed by a level belt of pasture- 
land and corn-fields, the white little town of Inverary glit- 
tered like a gem on the sea-shore j while to the right, amid 
lawns and gardens, and gleaming banks of wood, that hung 
down into the water, rose the dark towers of the Castle ; 
the whole environed by an amphitheatre of tumbled por- 
phyry hills, beyond whose fir-crowned crags rose the bare 
blue mountain-tops of Lorn. 

It was a perfect picture of peace and seclusion, and I 
confess I had great pride in being able to show my com- 
panion so fair a specimen of one of our lordly island homes 
— the birthplace of a race of nobles whose names sparkle 
down the page of their country's history as conspicuously 
as the golden letters in an illuminated missal. 

While descending towards the strand, I tried to amuse 
Sigurdr with a sketch of the fortunes of the great house of 
Argyll. 

I told him how in ancient days three warriors came from 
Green lerne, to dwell in the wild glens of Cowal and 
Lochow, — how one of them, the swart Breachdan, all for 
the love of blue-eyed Eila, swam the Gulf, once with a clew 
of thread, then with a hempen rope, last with an iron chain ; 
but this time, alas ! the returning tide sucks down the over- 
tasked hero into its swirling vortex ; how Diarmid O' Duin, 
i.e., son of "the Brown," slew with his own hand the 
mighty boar, whose head still scowls over the escutcheon 
of the Campbells ; — how in later times, while the murdered 
Duncan's son, afterwards the great Malcolm Canmore, was 
yet an exile at the court of his Northumbrian uncle, ere 
Birnam wood had marched to Dunsinane, the first Camp- 
bell /. e., Campus-bellus, Beau-champ, a Norman knight and 
nephew of the Conqueror, having won the hand of tho 
Lady Eva, sole heiress of the race of Diarmid, became 



6 LETTERS FROM HIGH LATITUDES. [IIL 

master of the lands and lordships of Argyll ; how six gen- 
erations later — each of them notable in their day — the 
valiant Sir Colin created for his posterity a title prouder 
than any within a sov^ereign's power to bestow, which no 
forfeiture could attaint, no act of parliament recall ; for 
though he cease to be Duke or Earl, the head of the Clan 
Campbell will still remain Mac Calan More, — and how at 
last the same Sir Colin fell at the String of Cowal, beneath 
the sword of that fierce lord, whose grand-daughter was des- 
tined to bind the honors of his own heirless house round 
the coronet of his slain foeman's descendant; how Sir 
Neill at Bannockburn fought side by side with the Bruce 
whose sister he had married ; how Colin, the first Earl, 
woed and won the Lady Isabel, sprung from the race of 
Somerled, Lord of the Isles, thus adding the galleys of 
Lorn to the blazonry of Argyll ; — how the next Earl died 
at Flodden, and his successor fought not less disastrously 
at Pinkie ; — how Archibald, fifth Earl, whose wife was at 
supper with the Queen, her half-sister, when Rizzio was 
murdered, fell on the field of Langside, smitten not by the 
hand of the enemy, but by the finger of God ; how Colin, 
Earl and boy-General at fifteen, was dragged away by force, 
with tears in his eyes, from the unhappy skirmish at Glen- 
livit, where his brave Highlanders were being swept down 
by the artillery of Huntley and Errol, — destined to regild 
his spurs in future years on the soil of Spain. 

Then I told him of the Great Rebellion, and how, amid 
the tumult of the next fifty years, the Grim Marquis — Gil- 
lespie Grumach, as his squint caused him to be called — 
Montrose's fatal foe, staked life and fortunes in the deadly 
game engaged in by the fierce spirits of that generation, 
and losing, paid the forfeit with his head, as calmly as be- 
came a brave and noble gentleman, leaving an example, 
which his son — already twice rescued from the scaffold, 
once by a daughter of the ever-gallant house of Lindsay, 



III.] THE SAGA OF CLAAT CAMPBELL, 7 

again a prisoner, and a rebel, because four years too soon 
to be a patriot — as nobly imitated — ; how, at last, the 
clouds of misfortune cleared away, and honors clustered 
where only merit had been before j the martyr's aureole, 
almost become hereditary, being replaced in the next gen- 
eration by a ducal coronet, itself to be regilt in its turn 
with a less sinister lustre by him — • 

" The State's whole thunder born to wield, 
And shake alike the senate and the field ; " 

who baffled Walpole in the cabinet, and conquered with 
Marlborough at Ramilies, Oudenarde, and Malplaquet ; — • 
and, last, — how at that present moment, even while we were 
speaking, the heir to all these noble reminiscences, the 
young chief of his princely line, had already won, at the 
age of twenty-nine, by the manly vigor of his intellect and 
his hereditary independence of character, the confidence 
of his follow countrymen, and a seat at the council board 
of his sovereign. 

Having thus duly indoctrinated Sigurdr with the Sagas 
of the family, as soon as we had crossed the lake I took 
him up to the Castle, and acted cicerone to its pictures 
and heirlooms, — the gleaming stands of muskets, whose 
fire wrought such fatal ruin at Culloden ; — the portrait of 
the beautiful Irish girl, twice a Duchess, whom the cun- 
ning artist has painted with a sunflower that turns from 
the sun to look at her; — Gillespie Grumach himself, as 
grim and sinister-looking as in life ; the trumpets to carry 
the voice from the hall door to Dunnaquaich j — the fair 
beech avenues, planted by the old Marquis, now looking 
with their smooth grey boles, and overhanging branches, 
like the cloisters of an abbey ; — the vale of Esechasan, to 
which, on the evening before his execution, the Earl wrote 
such touching verses ; the quaint old kitchen-garden ; the 
ruins of the ancient Castle, where worthy Major Dalgetty 
is said to have passed such uncomfortable moments ; the 



8 LETTERS FROM HIGH LA TITUDES. [III. 

Celtic cross from lone lona ; all and everything I showed 
off with as much pride and pleasure, I think, as if they had 
been my own possessions ; and the more so as the Ice- 
lander himself evidently sympathized with such Scald-like 
gossip. 

Having thoroughly overrun the woods and lawns of In- 
verary, we had a game of chess, and went to bed pretty 
well tired. 

The next morning, before breakfast, I went off in a 
boat to Ardkinglass to see my little cousins j and then re- 
turning about twelve, we got a post-chaise, and crossing 
the boastful Loch Awe in a ferry-boat, reached Oban at 
nightfall. Here I had the satisfaction of finding the 
schooner already arrived, and of being joined by the 
Doctor, just returned from his fruitless expedition to Holy- 
head. 



LETTER IV. 



THROUGH THE SOUNDS STORNAWAY THE SETTING UP OF 

THE FIGURE-HEAD FITZ'S FORAY OH WEEL MAY THE 

BOATIE ROW, THAT WINS THE BAIRNS' BREAD SIR 

PATRICK SPENS JOINS — UP ANCHOR. 

Stornaway, Island of Lewis, Hebrides, 1 
June 9, 1856. ) 

We reached these IsLinds of the West the day before 
yesterday, after a fine run from Oban. 

I had intended taking Staffa and lona on my way, but 
it came on so thick with heavy weather from the south- 
west, that to have landed on either island would have been 
out of the question. So we bore up under Mull at one in 
the morning, tore through the Sound at daylight, rounded 
Ardnamurchan under a double-reefed mainsail at two p. m., 
and shot into the Sound of Skye the same evening, leaving 
the hills of Moidart (one of whose ''''seven men^'' was an 
ancestor of your own), and the jaws of the hospitable Loch 
Hourn, reddening in the stormy sunset. 

At Kylakin we were obliged to bring up for the night \ 
but getting under weigh again at daylight, we took a fair 
wind with us along the east coast of Skye, passed Raasa 
and Rona, and so across the Minch to Stornaway. 

Stornaway is a little fishing town with a beautiful har- 
bor, from out of which was sailing, as we entered, a fleet 
of herring boats, their brown sails gleaming like gold 
against the dark angry water as they fluttered out to sea, 



I O LETTERS FROM HIGH LA TI TUBES. [IV. 

unmindful of the leaden clouds banked up along the west, 
and all the symptoms of an approaching gale. The next 
morning it was upon us ; but brought up as we were under 
the lee of a high rock, the tempest tore harmlessly over 
our heads, and left us at liberty to make the final prepara- 
tions for departure. 

Fitz, whose talents for discerning where the vegetables, 
fowls, and pretty ladies of a place were to be found, I had 
already had occasion to admire, went ashore to forage ; 
while I remained on board to superintend the fixing of our 
sacred figure head — executed in bronze by Marochetti — 
and brought along with me by rail, still warm from the 
furnace. 

For the performance of this solemnity I luckily pos- 
sessed a functionary equal to the occasion, in the shape of 
the second cook. Originally a guardsman, he had beaten 
his sword into a chisel, and become carpenter; subse- 
quently conceiving a passion for the sea, he turned his at- 
tention to the mysteries of the kitchen, and now sails with 
me in the alternate exercise of his two last professions. 
This individual, thus happily combining the chivalry in- 
herent in the profession of arms with the skill of the crafts- 
man and the refinement of the artist — to whose person, 
moreover, a paper cap, white vestments, and the sacrificial 
knife at his girdle, gave something of a sacerdotal charac- 
ter — I did not consider unfit to raise the ship's guardian 
image to its appointed place ; and after two hours' rever- 
ential handiwork, I had the satisfaction of seeing the well- 
known lovely face, with its golden hair, and smile that 
might charm all malice from the elements, beaming like a 
happy omen above our bows. 

Shortly afterwards Fitz came alongside, after a most 
successful foray among the fish-wives. He was sitting in 
the stern-sheets, up to his knees in vegetables, with seven 
elderly hens beside him, and a dissipated looking cock un- 



IV.] SIR FA TRICICS GOLD CHAIN. 1 1 

der his arm, with regard to whose qualifications its late 
proprietor had volunteered the most satisfactory assur- 
ances. I am also bound to mention, that protruding from 
his coat-pocket were certain sheets of music, with the 
name of " Alice Louisa," written therein in a remarkably 
pretty hand, which led me to believe that the Doctor had 
not entirely confined his energies to the acquisition of hens 
and vegetables. The rest of the day was spent in packing 
away our newly-purchased stores, and making the ship as 
tidy as circumstances would admit. I am afraid, however, 
many a smart yachtsman would have been scandalized at 
our decks, lumbered up with hen-coops, sacks of coal, and 
other necessaries, which, like the Queen of Spain's legs, 
not only ought never to be seen, but must not be supposed 
even to exist, on board a tip top craft. 

By the evening, the gale, which had been blowing all 
day, had increased to a perfect hurricane. At nine o'clock 
we let go a second anchor ; and I confess, as we sat com- 
fortably round the fire in the bright cheerful little cabin, 
and listened to the wind whistling and shrieking through 
the cordage, that none of us were sorry to find ourselves 
in port on such a night, instead of tossing on the wild At- 
lantic — though we little knew that even then the destroy- 
ing angel was busy with the fleet of fishing boats which 
had put to sea so gallantly on the evening of our arrival. 
By morning the neck of the gale was broken, and the sun 
shone brightly on the white rollers as they chased each 
other to the shore ; but a Queen's ship was steaming into 
the bay, with sad news of ruin out to seaward, — towing be- 
hind her, boats, water-logged, or bottom upwards, — while 
a silent crowd of women on the quay were waiting to learn 
on what homes among them the bolt had fallen. 

About twelve o'clock the Glasgow packet came in, and a 
few minutes afterwards I had the honor of receiving on 
my quarter-deck a gentleman who seemed a cross between 



12 LE TTERS FROM HIGH LA TI TUBES. [IV. 

the German student and the swell commercial gent. On h s 
head he wore a queer kind of smoking-cap, with the peak 
cocked over his left ear ; then came a green shooting 
jacket, and flashy silk tartan waistcoat, set off by a gold 
chain, hung about in innumerable festoons, — while light 
trousers and knotty Wellington boots completed his cos- 
tume, and made the wearer look as little like a seaman as 
need be. It appeared, nevertheless, that the individual in 
question was Mr. Ebenezer Wyse, my new sailing-master ; 
so I accepted Captain C.'s strong recommendation as a 
set-off against the silk tartan ; explained to the new comer 
the position he was to occupy on board, and gave orders 
for sailing in an hour. The multitudinous chain, more- 
over, so lavishly displayed, turned out to be an ornament 
of which Mr. Wyse might well be proud ; and the follow- 
ing history of its acquisition reconciled me more than any- 
thing else to my Master's unnautical appearance. 

Some time ago there was a great demand in Australia 
for small river steamers, which certain Scotch companies 
undertook to supply. The difficulty, however, was to get 
such fragile tea-kettles across the ocean ; five started one 
after another in murderous succession, and each came to 
grief before it got half way to the equator ; the sixth alone 
remained with which to try a last experiment. Should she 
arrive, her price would more than compensate the pecuni- 
ary loss already sustained, though it could not bring to life 
the hands sacrificed in the mad speculation ; by this time, 
however, even the proverbial recklessness of the seamen 
of the port was daunted, and the hearts of two crews had 
already failed them at the last moment of starting, when 
my friend of the chain volunteered to take the command. 
At the outset of his voyage everything went well ; a fair 
wind (her machinery was stowed away, and she sailed un- 
der canvas) carried the little craft in an incredibly short 
time a thousand miles to the southward of the Cape, when 



IV.J SIR PATRICK'S GOLD CHAIN. 13 

one day, as she was running before the gale, the man at 
the wheel — startled at a sea which he thought was going 
to poop her — let go the helm ; the vessel broached to, and 
tons of water tumbled in on the top of the deck. As soon 
as the confusion of the moment had subsided, it became 
evident that the shock had broken some of the iron plates, 
and that the ship w^as in a fair way of foundering. So 
frightened were the crew, that, after consultation with each 
other, they determined to take to the boats, and all hands 
came aft, to know whether there was anything the skipper 
would wish to carry off with him. Comprehending the 
madness of attempting to reach land in open boats at the 
distance of a thousand miles from any shore, Wyse pre- 
tended to go into the cabin to get his compass, chronom- 
eter, etc., but returning immediately with a revolver in 
each hand, swore he would shoot the first man who at- 
tempted to touch the boats. This timely exhibition of 
spirit saved their lives : soon after the weather moderated; 
by undergirding the ship with chains, St. Paul fashion, the 
leaks were partially stopped, the steamer reached her des- 
tination, and was sold for 7,000/, a few days after her ar- 
rival. In token of their gratitude for the good service he 
had done them, the company presented Mr. Wyse on his 
return with a gold watch, and the chain he wears so glori- 
ously outside the silk tartan waistcoat. 

And now, good-bye. I hear the click-click of the chain 
as they heave the anchor ; I am rather tired and exhaust- 
ed with all the worry of the last two months, and shall be 
heartily glad to get to sea, where fresh air will set me up 
again, I hope, in a few days. My next letter will be from 
Iceland ; and, please God, before I see English land again, 
I hope to have many a story to tell you of the islands that 
are washed by the chill waters of the Arctic Sea. 



LETTER V. 



THE NORTH ATLANTIC — SPANISH WAVES — OUR CABIN IN A 

GALE SEA-SICKNESS FROM A SCIENTIFIC POINT OF VIEW 

WILSON A PASSENGER COMMITS SUICIDE FIRST 

SIGHT OF ICELAND — FLOKI OF THE RAVENS THE NORSE 

MAYFLOWER FAXA FIORD WE LAND IN THULE. 

Reykjavik, Iceland, June 21, 1855. 

We have landed in Thule ! When, in parting, you moan- 
ed so at the thought of not being able to hear of our safe 
arrival, I knew there would be an opportunity of writing to 
you almost immediately after reaching Iceland ; but I said 
nothing about it at the time, lest something should delay 
this letter, and you be left to imagine all kinds of doleful 
reasons for its non-appearance. We anchored in Reyk- 
javik harbour this afternoon (Saturday). H. M. S. " Coquette^' 
sails for England on Monday ; so that within a week you 
will get this. 

For the last ten days we have been leading the life of the 

" Flying Dutchman.!' Never do I remember to have had 

such a dusting : foul winds, gales, and calms — or rather 

breathing spaces, which the gale took occasionally to muster 

up fresh energies for a blow — with a heavy head sea, that 

prevented our sailing even when we got a slant. On the 

afternoon of the day we quitted Stornaway, I got a notion 

how it was going to be ; the sun went angrily down behind 

a bank of solid grey cloud, and by the time we were up 

with the Butt of Lewis, the whole sky v/as in tatters, and the 

mercury nowhere, with a heavy swell from the north-west. 
'14 



v.] TREATMENT FOR SEA SICKNESS. 1 5 

As, two years before, I had spent a week in trying to beat 
through the Roost of Sumburgh under double-reefed try- 
sails, I was at home in the weather; and guessing we were 
in for it, sent down the topmasts, stowed the boats on board, 
handed the foresail, rove the ridge-ropes, and reefed all 
down. By midnight it blew a gale, which continued with- 
out intermission until the day we sighted Iceland ; some- 
times increasing to a hurricane, but broken now and then 
by sudden lulls, which used to leave us for a couple of hours 
at a time tumbling about on the top of the great Atlantic 
rollers — or Spanish waves, as they are called — until I 
thought the ship would roll the masts out of her. Why 
they should be called Spanish waves, no one seems to know ; 
but I had always heard the seas were heavier here than in 
any other part of the world, and certainly they did not belie 
their character. The little ship behaved beautifully, and 
many a vessel twice her size would have been less comfort- 
able. Indeed, few people can have any notion of the cosi- 
ness of a yacht's cabin under such circumstances. After 
having remained for several hours on deck, in the presence 
of the tempest, — peering through the darkness at those 
black liquid walls of water, mounting above you in cease- 
less agitation, or tumbling over in cataracts of gleaming 
foam, — the wind roaring through the rigging, — timbers 
creaking as if the ship would break its heart, — the spray 
and rain beating in your face, — everything around in tumult, 
suddenly to descend into the quiet of a snug, well-lighted 
little cabin, with the firelight dancing on the white rosebud 
chintz, the well-furnished book-shelves, and all the innum- 
erable nick-nacks that decorate its walls, — little Edith's 
portrait looking so serene, — everything about you as bright 
and fresh as a lady's boudoir in May Fair, — the certainty 
of being a good three hundred miles from any troublesome 
shore, — all combine to inspire a feeling of comfort and se- 
curity difficult to describe. 



t6 letters from high la ti tubes. [V. 

These pleasures, indeed, for the first days of our voyage, 
the Icelander had pretty much to himself. I was laid up 
with a severe bout of illness I had long felt coming on, and 
Fitz was sea-sick. I must say, however, I never saw any 
one behave with more pluck and resolution j and when we 
return, the first thing you do must be to thank him for his 
kindness to me on that occasion. Though himself almost 
prostrate, he looked after me as indefatigably as if he had 
already found his sea legs ; and, sitting down on the cabin 
floor, with a basin on one side of him, and a pestle and 
mortar on the other, used to manufacture my pills, between 
the paroxysms of his malady, with a decorous pertinacity 
that could not be too much admired. 

Strangely enough, too, his state of unhappiness lasted a 
few days longer than the eight-and-forty hours which are 
generally sufficient to set people on their feet again. I 
tried to console him by representing what an occasion it 
was for observing the phenomena of sea-sickness from a 
scientific point of view ; and I must say he set to work 
most conscientiously to discover some remedy. Brandy, 
prussic acid, opium, champagne, ginger, mutton-chops, and 
tumblers of salt-water, were successively exhibited ; but, 
I regret to say, after a few minutes, each in turn r^-exhibited 
itself with monotonous punctuality. Indeed, at one time 
we thought he would never get over; and the following 
conversation, which I overheard one morning between him 
and my servant, did not brighten his hopes of recovery. 

This person's name is Wilson, and of all men I ever met 
he is the most desponding. Whatever is to be done, he is 
sure to see a lion in the path. Life in his eyes is a perpe- 
tual filling of leaky buckets, and a rolling of stones up hill. 
He is amazed when the bucket holds water, or the stone 
perches on the summit. He professes but a limited belief 
in his star, — and success with him is almost a disappoint- 
ment. His countenance corresponds with the prevailing 



v.] FIRST SIGHT OF ICELAND. 17 

character of his thoughts, always hopelessly chapfallen; 
his voice is as of the tomb. He brushes my clothes, lays 
the cloth, opens the champagne, with the air of one advan- 
cing to his execution. I have never seen him smile but once, 
when he came to report to me that a sea had nearly swept 
his colleague, the steward, overboard. The son of a gard- 
ener at Chiswick, he first took to horticulture ; then emig- 
rated as a settler to the Cape, where he acquired his pres- 
ent complexion, which is of a grass-green ; and finally ser- 
ved as a steward on board an Australian steam-packet. 

Thinking to draw consolation from his professional ex- 
periences, I heard Fitz's voice, now very weak, say in a tone 
of coaxing cheerfulness, — 

" Well, Wilson, I suppose this kind of thing does not last 
long ? " 

The Voice, as of the tomb. — " I don't know. Sir." 

Fitz. — " But you must have often seen passengers sick.'* 

The Voice. — " Often, Sir ; very sick." 

Fitz. — " Well, and on an average, how soon did they re- 



cover 



?" 



The Voice. — " Some of them didn't recover. Sir." 

Fitz.—'' Well, but those that did ? " 

The Voice. — " I know'd a clergyman and his wife as were 
ill all the voyage ; five months, Sir." 

Fitz. — (Quite silent.) 

The Voice ; now become sepulchral. — They sometimes dies, 
Sir." 

Fitz.—'' Ugh ! " 

Before the end of the voyage, however, this Job's com- 
forter himself fell ill, and the Doctor amply revenged him- 
self by prescribing for him. 

Shortly after this, a very melancholy occurrence took 
place. I had observed for some days past, as we proceed- 
ed north, and the nights became shorter, that the cock we 
shipped at Stornaway had become quite bewildered on the 

2 



l8 LETTERS FROM HIGH LATITUDES. [V. 

subject of that meteorological phenomenon called the Dawn 
of Day. In fact, I doubt whether he ever slept for more 
than five minutes at a stretch, without waking up in a state 
of nervous agitation, lest it should be cock-crow. At last, 
when night ceased altogether, his constitution could no 
longer stand the shock. He crowed once or twice sarcasti- 
cally, then went melancholy mad : finally, taking a calen- 
ture, he cackled lowly (probably of green fields), and leap- 
ing overboard, drowned himself. The mysterious manner 
in which every day a fresh member of his harem used to 
disappear, may also have preyed upon his spirits. 

At last, on the morning of the eighth day, we began to 
look out for land. The weather had greatly improved 
during the night ; and, for the first time since leaving the 
Hebrides, the sun had got the better of the clouds, and 
driven them in confusion before his face. The sea, losing 
its dead leaden color, had become quite crisp and burnish- 
ed, darkling into a deep sapphire blue against the horizon ; 
beyond which, at about nine o'clock, there suddenly shot 
up towards the zenith, a pale, gold aureole, such as precedes 
the appearance of the good fairy at a pantomime farce ; 
then, gradually lifting its huge back above the water, rose 
a silver pyramid of snow, which I knew must be the cone 
of an ice mountain, miles away in the interior of the island. 
From the moment we got hold of the land, our cruise, as 
you may suppose, doubled in interest. Unfortunately, how- 
ever the fair morning did not keep its promise ; about one 
o'clock, the glittering mountain vanished in mist ; the sky 
again became like an inverted pewter cup, and we had to 
return for two more days to our old practice of threshing 
to windward. So provoked was I at this relapse of the 
weather, that, perceiving a whale blowing convenient., I could 
not help suggesting to Sigurdr, son of Jonas, that it was an 
■occasion for observing the traditions of his family ; but he ex- 
cused himself on the plea of their having become obsolete. 



V.J BAY OF FAXA FIORD. 19 

The mountain we had seen in the morning was the south 
east extremity of the Island, the very landfall made by one 
of its first discoverers. ■*• This gentleman not having a com- 
pass, (he lived about a. d. 864.) not knowing exactly where 
the land lay, took on board with him, at starting, three 
consecrated ravens — as an M. P. would take three well 
trained pointers to his moor. Having sailed a certain 
distance he let loose one, which flew back : by this he judged 
he had not got half-way. Proceeding onwards, he loosed 
the second, which after circling in the air for some min- 
utes in apparent uncertainty, also made off home, as though 
it still remained a nice point which were the shorter course 
towards terra firma. But the third, on obtaining his liberty 
a few days later, flew forward, and by following the direc- 
tion in which he had disappeared, Rabna Floki, or Floki 
of the Ravens, as he came to be called, triumphantly made 
the land. 

The real colonists did not arrive till some years later, 
for I do not much believe a story they tell of Christian rel- 
ics, supposed to have been left by Irish fishermen, 
found on the Westmann islands. A Scandinavian king, 
named Harold HaarEager (a contemporary of our own King 
Alfred's) having murdered, burnt, and otherwise extermi- 
nated all his brother kings who at that time grew as thick 
as blackberries in Norway, first consolidated their domin- 

I There is in Strabo an account of a voyage made by a citizen of 
the Greek colony of Marseilles, in the time of Alexander the Great, 
through the Pillars of Hercules, along the coasts of France and Spain 
up the English Channel, and so across the North Sea, past an island 
he calls Thule ; his further progress, he asserted, was hindered by a 
barrier of a peculiar nature, — neither earth, air, nor sky, but a compound 
of all three, forming a thick viscid substance whicii it was impossible 
to penetrate. Now, whether this same Thule was one of the Shetland 
islands, and the impassable substance merely a fog, — or Island, and 
the barricade beyond, a wall of ice, it is impossible to say. Probably 
Pythias did not get beyond the Shetlands. 



20 LETTERS FROM HIGH LA TITUDES. [V. 

ions into one realm, as Edgar did the Heptarchy, and then 
proceeded to invade the Udal rights of the landholders. 
Some of them animated with that love of liberty innate in 
the race of the noble Northmen, rather than submit to his 
oppressions, determined to look for a new home amid the 
desolate regions of the icy sea. Freighting a dragon-shap- 
ed galley — the " Mayflower " of the period — with their wives 
and children, and all the household monuments that were 
clear to them, they saw the blue peaks of their dear Nor- 
way hills sink down into the sea behind, and manfully set 
their face towards the west, where — some vague report had 
v/hispered — a new land might be found. Arrived in sight 
of Iceland, the leader of the expedition threw the sacred 
pillars belonging to his former dwelling into the water, in 
order that the gods might determine the site of his new 
home : carried by the tide no one could say in what direc- 
tion, they were at last discovered, at the end of three years, 
in a sheltered bay on the west side of the island, and Ingolf i 
came and abode there, and the place became in the course 
of years Reykjavik, the capital of the country. 

Sigurdr having scouted the idea of acting Iphigenia, 
there was nothing for it but steadily to beat over the 
remaining hundred and fifty miles, which still separated us 
from Cape Reikianess. After going for two days hard at 
it, and sighting the Westmann islands, we ran plump into 
a fog, and lay to. In a few hours, however, it cleared up 
into a lovely sunny day, with a warm summer breeze just 
rippling up the water. Before us lay the long wished-for 
Cape, with the Meal-sack, — a queer stump of basalt, that 
flops up out of the sea, fifteen miles south-west of Cape 
Reikianess, its flat top white with guano, like the mouth of 
a bag of flour, — five miles on our port bow ; and seldom 
have I remembered a pleasanter four-and-twenty hours 

I It was in consequence of a domestic feud that Ingolf himself was 
forced to emigrate. 



V.J BAY OF FAX A FIORD. 2 1 

than those spent stealing up along the gnarled and crum- 
pled lava flat that forms the western coast of Guldbrand 
Syssel. Such fishing, shooting, looking through telescopes, 
and talking of what was to be done on our arrival ! Like 
Antaeus, Sigurdr seemed twice the man he was before, at 
sight of his native land ; and the Doctor grew nearly lunatic 
when after stalking a solent goose asleep on the water, the 
bird flew away at the moment the schooner hove within shot. 

The panorama of the bay of Faxa Fiord is magnificent, 
— with a width of fifty miles from horn to horn, the one 
running down into a rocky ridge of pumice, the other 
towering to the height of five thousand feet in a pyramid 
of eternal snow, while round the intervening semicircle 
crowd the peaks of a hundred noble mountains. As you 
approach the shore, you are very much reminded of the 
west coast of Scotland, except that everything is more 
intense — the atmosphere clearer, the light more vivid, the 
air more bracing, the hills steeper, loftier, more tormented, 
as the French say, and more gaunt ; while between their 
base and the sea stretches a dirty greenish slope, patched 
with houses which themselves, both roof and walls, are of 
mouldy green, as if some long-since inhabited country had 
been fished up out of the bottom of the sea. 

The effects of light and shadow are the purest I ever 
saw, the contrasts of color most astonishing, — one square 
front of a mountain jutting out in a blaze of gold against 
the flank of another, dyed of the darkest purple, while up 
against the azure sky beyond, rise peaks of glittering snow 
and ice. The snow, however, beyond serving as an orna- 
mental fringe to the distance, plays but a very poor part at 
this season of the year in Iceland. While I write, the 
thermometer is above 70''. Last night we remained iDla3dng 
at chess on deck till bedtime, without thinking of calling 
for coats, and my people live in their shirt-sleeves, and — 
astonishment at the climate. 



22 LETTERS FROM HIGH LATITUDES, [V. 

And now, good-bye. I cannot tell you how I am enjoy- 
ing myself, body and soul. Already I feel much stronger, 
and before I return I trust to have laid in a stock of health 
sufficient to last the family for several generations. 

Remember me to , and tell her she looks too 

lovely ; her face has become of a beautiful bright green— 
a complexion which her golden crown sets off to the great- 
est advantage. I wish she could have seen, as we sped 
across, how passionately the waves of the Atlantic flung 
their liquid arms about her neck, and how proudly she 
broke through their embraces, leaving them far behind, 
moaning and lamenting. 



LETTER VI. 



REYKJAVIK LATIN CONVERSATION — I BECOME THE PROPRI- 
ETOR OF TWENTY-SIX HORSES EIDER DUCKS BESSESTAD 

SNORRO STURLESON THE OLD GREENLAND COLONY 

FINLAND A GENOESE SKIPPER IN THE FIFTEENTH CEN- 
TURY AN ICELANDIC DINNER SKOAL AN AFTER-DIN- 
NER SPEECH IN LATIN WINGED RABBITS DUCROW 

START OF THE BAGGAGE-TRAIN. 

Reykjavik, June 28, 1856. 

Notwithstanding that its site, as I mentioned in my 
last letter, was determined by auspices not less divine than 
those of Rome or Athens, Reykjavik is not so fine a city 
as either, though its public buildings may be thought to be 
in better repair. In fact, the town consists of a collection 
of wooden sheds, one story high — rising here and there 
into a gable end of greater pretensions — built along the 
lava beach, and flanked at either end by a suburb of turf 
huts. 

On every side of it extends a desolate plain of lava that 
once must have boiled up red-hot from some distant gate- 
way of hell, and fallen hissing into the sea. No tree or 
bush relieves the dreariness of the landscape, and the 
mountains are too distant to serve as a background to the 
buildings ; but before the door of each merchant's house 
facing the sea, there flies a gay little pennon ; and as you 
walk along the silent streets, whose dust no carriage-wheel 
has ever desecrated, the rows of flower-pots that peep out 



24 LETTERS FROM HIGH LATITUDES. [VI, 

of the windows, between curtains of white muslin, at once 
convince you that notwithstanding their unpretending ap- 
pearance, within each dwelling reign the elegance and 
comfort of a woman-tended home. 

Thanks to Sigurdr's popularity among his countrymen, 
by the second day after our arrival we found ourselves no 
longer in a strange land. With a frank energetic cordiality 
that quite took one by surprise, the gentlemen of the place 
at once welcomed us to their firesides, and made us feel 
that we could give them no greater pleasure than by 
claiming their hospitality. As, however, it is necessary, 
if we are to reach Jan Mayen and Spitzbergen this sum- 
mer, that our stay in Iceland should not be prolonged 
above a certain date, I determined at once to make prepar- 
ations for our expedition to the Geysirs and the interior of 
the country. Our plan at present, after visiting the hot 
springs, is to return to Reykjavik, and stretch right across 
the middle of the island to the north coast — scarcely ever 
visited by strangers. Thence we shall sail straight away 
to Jan Mayen. 

In pursuance of this arrangement, the first thing to do 
was to buy some horses. Away, accordingly, we went in 
the gig to the little pier leading up to the merchant's house 
who had kindly promised Sigurdr to provide them. Ever)^- 
thing in the country that is not made of wood is made of 
lava. The pier was constructed out of huge boulders of 
lava, the shingle is lava, the sea-sand is pounded lava, the 
mud on the roads is lava paste, the foundations of the 
houses are lava blocks, and in dry weather you are blinded 
with lava dust. Immediately upon landing I was presen- 
ted to a fine, burly gentleman, who, I was informed, could 
let me have a steppe-ful of horses if I desired, and a few 
minutes afterwards I picked myself up in the middle of a 
Latin oration on the subject of the weather. Having sud- 
denly lost my nominative case, I concluded abruptly with 



VI.] BECOME PROPRIETOR OF 2^ HORSES. 25 

the figure syncope, and a bow, to which my interlocutor 
politely replied "Ita." Many of the inhabitants speak 
English, and one or two French, but in default of either of 
these, your only chance is Latin. At first I found great 
difficulty in brushing up anything sufficiently conversa- 
tional, more especially as it was necessary to broaden out 
the vowels in the high Roman fashion ; but a little practice 
soon made me more fluent, and I got at last to brandish my 
f Pergratum est," etc., in the face of a new acquaintance, 
without any misgivings. On this occasion I thought it 
more prudent to let Sigurdr make the necessary arrange- 
ments for our journey, and in a few minutes I had the sat- 
isfaction of learning that I had become the proprietor of 
twenty-six horses, as many bridles and pack-saddles, and 
three guides. 

There being no roads in Iceland, all the traffic of the 
country is conducted by means of horses, along the bridle- 
tracks which centuries of travel have worn in the lava plains. 
As but little hay is to be had, the winter is a season of fast- 
ing for all cattle, and it is not until spring is well advanced, 
and the horses have had time to grow a little fat on the 
young grass, that you can go a journey. I was a good deal 
taken aback when the number of my stud was announced 
to me ; but it appears that what with the photographic ap- 
paratus, which I am anxious to take, and our tent, it would 
be impossible to do with fewer animals. The price of each 
pony is very moderate, and I am told F shall have no dif- 
ficulty in disposing of all of them, at the conclusion of our 
expedition. 

These preliminaries happily concluded, Mr. J ■ in- 
vited us into his house, where his wife and daughter — a 
sunshiny young lady of eighteen — were waiting to receive 
us. As Latin here was quite useless, we had to entrust 
Sigurdr with all the pretty things we desired to convey to 
our entertainers j but it is my firm opinion that that gen- 



26 LETTERS FROM HIGH LA TL TUBES. [VI. 

tleman took a dirty advantage of us, and intercepting the 
choicest flowers of our eloquence, appropriated them to the 
advancement of his ov^n interests. However, such expres- 
sions of respectful admiration as he suffered to reach their 
destination were received very graciously^ and rewarded 
with a shower of smiles. 

The next few days were spent in making short expedi- 
tions in the neighborhood, in preparing our baggage-train, 
and in paying visits. It would be too long for me to enu- 
merate all the marks of kindness and hospitality I received 
during this short period. Suffice it to say, that I had the 
satisfaction of making many very interesting acquaintances, 
of beholding a great number of very pretty faces, and of 
partaking of an innumerable quantity of luncheons. In 
fact, to break bread, or, more correctly speaking, to crack 
a bottle with the master of the house, is as essential an ele- 
ment of a morning call as the making a bow or shaking 
hands, and to refuse to take off your glass would be as 
great an incivility as to decline taking off your hat. From 
earliest times, as the grand old ballad of the King of Thule 
tells us, a beaker was considered the fittest token a lady 
could present to her true-love — 

lUcm ftcrbcnii fcinc Buljle 
Cincn golirnen l3cd)iT gab. 

And in one of the most ancient Eddaic songs it is writ- 
ten, " Drink, Runes, must thou know, if thou wilt main- 
tain thy power over the maiden thou lovest. Thou shalt 
score them on the drinking-horn, on the back of thy hand, 
and the word naud " (iieed — necessity) "on thy nail." 
Moreover, when it is remembered that the ladies of the 
house themselves minister on these occasions, it will be 
easily understood that all flinching is out of the question. 
What is a man to do, when a wicked little golden-haired 
maiden insists on pouring him out a bumper, and dumb 



VI.J AN ICELANDIC LADY'S DRESS. 27 

show is the only means of remonstrance ? Why, of course, 
if death were in the cup, he must make her a leg, and drain 
it to the bottom, as I did. In conclusion, I am bound to 
add that, notwithstanding the bacchanalian character pre- 
vailing in these visits, I derived from them much interest- 
ing and useful information ; and I have invariably found 
the gentlemen to whom I have been presented persons of 
education and refinement, combined with a happy, healthy, 
jovial temperament, that invests their conversation with a 
peculiar charm. 

At this moment people are in a great state of excite- 
ment at the expected arrival of H. I. H. Prince Napoleon, 
and two days ago a large full-rigged ship came in laden 
with coal for his use. The day after we left Stornaway, we 
had seen her scudding away before the gale on a due west 
course, and guessed she was bound for Iceland, and run- 
ning down the longitude ; but as we arrived here four days 
before her, our course seems to have been a better one. 
The only other ship here is the French frigate " Arteinise,''^ 
Commodore Dumas, by whom I have been treated with the 
greatest kindness and civility. 

On Saturday we went to Vedey, a beautiful little green 
island where the eider ducks breed, and build nests with 
the soft under-down plucked from their own bosoms. Af- 
ter the little ones are hatched, and their birthplaces "desert- 
ed, the nests are gathered, cleaned, and stuffed into pillow- 
cases, for pretty ladies in Europe to lay their soft, warm 
cheeks upon, and sleep the sleep of the innocent ; while 
long-legged, broad-shouldered Englishmen protrude from 
between them at German inns, like the ham from a sand- 
wich, and cannot sleep, however innocent. 

The next day, being Sunday, I read prayers on board, 
and then went for a short time to the cathedral church, — 
the only stone building in Reykjavik. It is a moderate- 
sized, unpretending place, capable of holding three or four 



28 LETTERS FROM HIGH LATITUDES. [VI. 

hundred persons, erected in very ancient times, but lately 
restored. The Icelanders are of the Lutheran religion ; 
and a Lutheran clergyman, in a black gown, etc., with a 
ruff round his neck, such as our bishops are painted in 
about the time of James the First, was preaching a ser- 
mon. It was the first time I had heard Icelandic spoken 
continuously, and it struck me as a singularly sweet car- 
essing language, although I disliked the particular cadence, 
amounting almost to a chant, with which each sentence 
ended. 

As in every church where pra3'ers have been offered up 
since the world began, the majority of the congregation 
were women, some few dressed in bonnets, and the rest in 
the national black silk skull-cap, set jauntily on one side 
of the head, with a long black tassel hanging down to the 
shoulder, or else in a quaint mitre of white linen, of which 
a drawing alone could give you an idea ; the remainder of 
an Icelandic lady's costume, when not superseded by Paris 
fashions, consists of a black bodice fastened in front with 
silver clasps, over which is drawn a cloth jacket, ornamen- 
ted with a multitude of silver buttons ; round the neck 
goes a stiff ruff of velvet, figured with silver lace, and a sil- 
ver belt, often beautifully chased, binds the long dark 
wadmal petticoat round the waist. Sometimes the orna- 
ments are of gold instead of silver, and very costly. 

Before dismissing his people, the preacher descended 
from the pulpit, and putting on a splendid cope of crimson 
velvet (in which some bishop had in ages past been mur- 
dered), turned his back to the congregation, and chanted 
some Latin sentences in good round Roman style. Though 
still retaining in their ceremonies a few vestiges of the old 
religion, though altars, candles, pictures, and crucifixes, 
yet remain in many of their churches, the Icelanders are 
staunch Protestants, and, by all accounts, the most devout, 
innocent, pure-hearted people in the world. Crime, theft, 



VI.] A FARM-STEADING. 29 

debauchery, cruelty, are unknown amongst them ; they 
have neither prison, gallows, soldiers, nor police ; and in 
the manner of the lives they lead among their secluded val- 
leys, there is something of a patriarchal simplicity, that re- 
minds one of the Old World princes, of whom it has been 
said, that they were "upright and perfect, eschewing evil, 
and in their hearts no guile." 

The law with regard to marriage, however, is sufficient- 
ly peculiar. When, from some unhappy incompatibility of 
temper, a married couple live so miserably together as to 
render life insupportable, it is competent for them to ap- 
ply to the Danish Governor of the island for a divorce. 
If after the lapse of three years from the date of the appli- 
cation, both are still of the same mind, and equally eager 
to be free, the divorce is granted, and each is at liberty to 
marry again. 

The next day it had been arranged that we were to take 
an experimental trip on our new ponies, under the guid- 
ance of the learned and jovial Rector of the College. Un- 
fortunately the weather was dull and rainy, but we were de- 
termined to enjoy ourselves in spite of everything, and a 
pleasanter ride I have seldom had. The steed Sigurdr 
had purchased for me was a long-tailed, hog-maned, shag- 
gy, cow-houghed creature, thirteen hands high, of a bright 
yellow color, with admirable action, and sure-footed enough 
to walk downstairs backwards. The Doctor was not less 
well mounted ; in fact, the Icelandic pony is quite a pecu- 
liar race, much stronger, faster, and better bred than the 
Highland shelty, and descended probably from pure-blood- 
ed sires that scoured the steppes of Asia, long before 
Odin and his paladins had peopled the valleys of Scandi- 
navia. 

The first few miles of our ride lay across an undulating 
plain of dolorite, to a farm situated at the head of an inlet 
of the sea. At a distance, the farm-steading looked like a 



so LETTERS FROM HIGH LATITUDES. [VI 

little oasis of green, amid the grey stony slopes that sur- 
rounded it, and on a nearer approach not unlike the ves- 
tiges of a Celtic earthwork, with the tumulus of a hero or 
two in the centre ; but the mounds turned out to be noth- 
ing more than the grass roofs of the house and ofhces, and 
the banks and dykes but circumvallations round the plot 
of most carefully cleaned meadow, called the "tun," which 
always surrounds every Icelandic farm. This word " tun " 
is evidently identical with our own Irish " towiiland^^^ the 
Cornish '"''town''' and the Scotch ''''toon''' — terms which, in 
their local signification, do not mean a congregation of 
streets and buildings, but the yard, and spaces of grass 
immediately adjoining a single house ; just as in German 
we have " tzaim^'^ and in the Dutch '•'' tuyn^'' a garden. 

Turning to the right, round the head of a little bay, we 
passed within forty yards of an enormous eagle, seated on 
a crag ; but we had no rifle, and all he did was to rise 
heavily into the air, flap his wings like a barn-door fowl, 
and plump lazily down twenty yards farther off. Soon 
after, the district we traversed became more igneous, 
wrinkled, cracked, and ropy than anything we had yet 
seen, and another two hours' scamper over such a track as 
till then I would not have believed horses could have 
traversed, even at a foot's pace, brought us to the solitary 
farm-house of Bessestad. Fresh from the neat homesteads 
of England that we had left sparkling in the bright spring 
weather, and sheltered by immemorial elms, — the scene 
before us looked expressibly desolate. In front rose a 
cluster of weather-beaten wooden buildings, and huts like 
ice-houses, surrounded by a scanty plot of grass, reclaimed 
from the craggy plain of broken lava that stretched — the 
home of ravens and foxes — on either side to the horizon. 
Beyond, lay a low, black breadth of moorland, intersected by 
patches of what was neither land nor water, and last, the 
sullen sea ; while above our heads a wind, saturated with 



VI.] DOMESTIC ECONOMY. 31 

the damps of the Atlantic, went moaning over the land- 
scape. Yet this was Bessestad, the ancient home of Snorro 
Sturleson ! 

On dismounting from our horses and entering the 
house things began to look more cheery ; a dear old lady, 
to whom we were successively presented by the Rector, re- 
ceived us, with the air of a princess, ushered us into her 
best room, made us sit down on the sofa — the place of 
honor — and assisted by her niece, a pale, lily-like maiden, 
named after Jarl Hakon's Thora, proceeded to serve us 
with hot coffee, rusks, and sweetmeats. At first it used to 
give me a very disagreeable feeling to be waited upon by 
the woman-kind of the household, and I was always start- 
ing up, and attempting to take the dishes out of their 
hands, to their infinite surprise ; but now I have suc- 
ceeded in learning to accept their ministrations with the 
same unembarrassed dignity as my neighbors. In the end, 
indeed, I have rather got to like it, especially when they 
are as pretty as Miss Thora. To add, moreover, to our 
content, it ajDpeared that that young lady spoke a little 
French ; so that we had no longer any need to pay our 
court by proxy, which many persons besides ourselves 
have found to be unsatisfactory. Our hostess lives quite 
alone. Her son, whom I have the pleasure of knowing, is 
far away, pursuing a career of honor and usefulness at 
Copenhagen, and it seems quite enough for his mother to 
know that he is holding his head high among the princes 
of literature, and the statesmen of Europe, provided only 
news of his success and advancing reputation shall oc- 
casionally reach her across the ocean. 

Of the rooms and the interior arrangement of the 
house, I do not know that I have anything particular to 
tell you ; they seemed to me like those of a good old- 
fashioned farm-house, the walls v/ainscoted with deal, and 
the doors and staircase of the same material. A few 



32 LETTERS FROM HIGH LATITUDES. [VI. 

prints, a photograph, some book-shelves, one or two little 
pictures, decorated the parlor, and a neat iron stove, and 
massive chests of drawers, served to furnish it very com- 
pletely. But you must not, I fear, take the drawing-room 
of Bessestad as an average specimen of the comfort of an 
Icelandic interieur. The greater proportion of the inhabit- 
ants of the island live much more rudely. The walls of 
only the more substantial farmsteads are wainscoted with 
deal, or even partially screened with drift-wood. In most 
houses the bare blocks of lava, pointed with moss, are left 
in all their natural ruggedness. Instead of wood, the raf- 
ters are made of the ribs of whales. The same room but 
too often serves as the dining, sitting, and sleeping place 
for the whole family; a hole in the roof is the only chim- 
ney, and a horse's skull the most luxurious faitteuil into 
which it is possible for them to induct a stranger. The 
parquet is that originally laid down by Nature, — the beds 
are merely boxes filled with feathers or sea-weed, — and by 
all accounts the nightly packing is pretty close, and very 
indiscriminate. 

After drinking several cups of coffee, and consuming 
at least a barrel of rusks, we rose to go, in spite of Miss 
Thora's intimation that a fresh jorum of coffee was being 
brewed. The horses were re-saddled ; and with an elo- 
quent exchange of bows, curtseys, and kindly smiles, we 
took leave of our courteous entertainers, and sallied forth 
into the wind and rain. It was a regular race home, single 
file, the Rector leading ; but as we sped along in silence, 
amid the unchangeable features of this strange land, I 
could not help thinking of him whose shrewd observing 
eye must have rested, six hundred and fifty years ago, on 
the selfsame crags, and tarns, and distant mountain-tops ; 
perhaps on the very day he rode out in the pride of his 
wealth, talent, and political influence, to meet his murder- 
ers at Reikholt. And mingling with his memory would 



VI.] ANCIENT LITER A TURE. l}^ 

rise the pale face of Thora, — not the little lady of the 
coffee and biscuits we had just left, but that other Thora, 
so tender and true, who turned back King Olaf's hell- 
hounds from the hiding-place of the great Jarl of Lade. 

In order that you may understand why the forlorn bar- 
rack we had just left, and its solitary inmates, should have 
set me thinking of the men and women " of a thousand 
summers back," it is necessary I should tell you a little 
about/ this same Snorro Sturleson, whose memory so 
haunted me. 

Colonized as Iceland had been, — not, as is generally 
the case, when a new land is brought into occupation, by 
the poverty-stricken dregs of a redundant population, nor 
by a gang of outcasts and ruffians, expelled from the 
bosom of a society which they contaminated, — but by men 
who in their own land had been both rich and noble, — 
with possessions to be taxed, and a spirit too haughty to 
endure taxation, — already acquainted with whatever of re- 
finement and learning the age they lived in was capable of 
supplying, — it is not surprising that we should find its in- 
habitants, even from the first infancy of the republic, en- 
dowed with an amount of intellectual energy hardly to be 
expected in so secluded a community. 

Perhaps it was this very seclusion which stimulated 
into almost miraculous exuberance the mental powers 
already innate in the people. Undistracted during several 
successive centuries by the bloody wars, and still more 
bloody political convulsions, which for too long a period 
rendered the sword of the warrior so much more impor- 
tant to European society than the pen of the scholar, the 
Icelandic settlers, devoting the long leisure of their winter 
nights to intellectual occupations, became the first of any 
European nation to create for themselves a native litera- 
ture. Indeed, so much more accustomed did they get to 
use their heads than their hands, that if an Icelander 

3 



34 LETTERS FROM HIGH LA TI TUBES. [VI. 

^ere injured he often avenged himself, not by cutting the 
throat of his antagonist, but by ridiculing him in some 
pasquinade, — sometimes, indeed, he did both ; and when 
the King of Denmark maltreats the crew of an Icelandic 
vessel shipwrecked on his coast, their indignant country- 
men send the barbarous monarch word, that by way of 
reprisal, they intend making as many lampoons on him as 
there are promontories in his dominions. Almost all the 
ancient Scandinavian manuscripts are Icelandic ; the ne- 
gotiations between the Courts of the North were conducted 
by Icelandic diplomatists ; the earliest topographical sur- 
vey with which we are acquainted was Icelandic ; the 
cosmogony of the Odin religion was formulated, and its 
doctrinal traditions and ritual reduced to a system, by Ice- 
landic archaeologists ; and the first historical composition 
ever written by any European in the vernacular, was the 
product of Icelandic genius. The title of this important 
work is " The Heimskringla,^'' or ivorld- circle^ and its author 
was — Snorro Sturleson ! It consists of an account of the 
reigns of the Norwegian kings from mythic times down 
to about A. D. 1 150, that is to say, a few years before the 
death of our own Henry II : but detailed by the old Saga- 
man with so much art and cleverness as almost to combine 
the dramatic power of Macaulay with Clarendon's delicate 
delineation of character, and the charming loquacity of 
Mr. Pepys. His stirring sea-fights, his tender love-stories, 
and delightful bits of domestic gossip, are really inimita- 
ble ; — you actually live with the people he brings upon the 
stage, as intimately as you do with Falstaff, Percy, or 
Prince Hal ; and there is something in the bearing of 
those old heroic figures who form his dramatis perso7tce, so 
grand and noble, that it is impossible to read the story of 

I So called because Heimskringla (world-circle) is the first word 
ill the opening sentence of the manuscript which catches the eye. 



VI.] ANCIENT LITERATURE. 35 

their earnest stirring lives without a feeling of almost pas- 
sionate interest — an effect which no tale frozen up in the 
monkish Latin of the Saxon annalists has ever produced 
upon me. 

As for Snorro's own lite, it was eventful and tragic 
enough. Unscrupulous, turbulent, greedy of money, he 
married two heiresses — the one, however, becoming the 
colleague^ not the successor of the other. This arrangement 
naturally led to embarrassment. His wealth created envy, 
his excessive haughtiness disgusted his sturdy fellow-coun- 
trymen. He was suspected of desiring to make the repub- 
lic an appanage of the Norwegian crown, in the hope of 
himself becoming viceroy ; and at last, on a dark Septem- 
ber night, of the year 1241, he was murdered in his house 
at Reikholt by his three sons-in-law. 

The same century which produced the Herodotean work 
of Sturleson also gave birth to a whole body of miscellane- 
ous Icelandic literature, — though in Britain and elsewhere 
bookmaking was entirely confined to the monks, and mere- 
ly consisted in the compilation of a series of bald annals 
locked up in bad Latin. It is true, Thomas of Ercildoune 
was a contemporary of Snorro's ; but he is known to us 
more as a magiciati than as a man of letters ; whereas 
histories, memoirs, romances, biographies, poetry, statistics, 
novels, calendars, specimens of almost every kind of com- 
position, are to be found even among the meagre relics 
which have survived the literary decadence that superven- 
ed on the extinction of the republic. 

It is to these same spirited chroniclers that we are in- 
debted for the preservation of two of the most remarkable 
facts in the history of the world : the colonization of 
Greenland by Europeans in the loth century, and the dis- 
covery of America by the Icelanders at the commencement 
of the nth. 



36 LETTERS FROM HIGH LATITUDES fVI. 

The story is rather curious. 

Shortly after the arrival of the first settlers in Iceland, a 
mariner of the name of Eric the Red discovers a country 
away to the west^ which, in consequence of its fruitful 
appearance, he calls Greenland. In the course of a few 
years the new land has become so thickly inhabited that it 
is necessary to erect the district into an episcopal see ; and 
at last, in 1448, we have a brief of Pope Nicolas "granting 
to his beloved children of Greenland, in consideration of 
their having erected many sacred buildings and a splendid 
cathedral," — a new bishop and a fresh supply of priests. 
At the commencement, however, of the next century, this 
colony of Greenland, with its bishops, priests and people, 
its one hundred and ninety townships, its cathedral, its 
churches, its monasteries, suddenly fades into oblivion, like 
the fabric of a dream. The memory of its existence perish- 
es, and the allusions made to it in the old Scandinavian 
Sagas gradually come to be considered poetical inventions 
or pious frauds. At last, after a lapse ' of four hundred 
years, some Danish missionaries set out to convert the 
Esquimaux ; and there, far within Davis' Straits, are dis- 
covered vestiges of the ancient settlement, — remains of 
houses, paths, walls, churches, tombstones, and inscrip- 
tions.-^ 

I On one tombstone there was written in Runic. " Vigdis M. D. 
Hvilir Her; Glwde Gude Sal Hennar." " Vigdessa rests here; God 
gladden her soul." But the most interesting of these inscriptions is 
one discovered, in 1824, in an island in Baffin's Bay, in latitude 72° 55^, 
as it shows how boldly these Northmen must have penetrated into re- 
gions supposed to have been unvisited by man before the voyages of 
our modern navigators : — " Erling Sighvatson and Biomo Thordarson, 
and Eindrid Oddson, on Saturday before Ascension-week, raised these 
marks and cleared ground, 1135." This date of Ascension-week im- 
plies that these three men wintered here, which must lead us to im- 
agine that at that time, seven hundred years ago, the climate was less 
inclement than it is now. 



VI.] THE OLD GREENLAND COLONY. 37 

What could have been the calamity which suddenly 
annihilated this Christian people, it is impossible to say \ 
whether they were massacred by some warlike tribe of 
natives, or swept off to the last man by the terrible pesti- 
lence of 1349, called " The Black Death," or, — most hor- 
rible conjecture of all, — beleaguered by vast masses of ice 
setting down from the Polar Sea along the eastern coast 
of Greenland, and thus miserably frozen, — we are never 
likely to know — so utterly did they perish, so mysterious 
has been their doom. 

On" the other hand, certain traditions, with regard to the 
discovery of a vast continent by their forefathers away in 
the south-west, seems never entirely to have died out of the 
memory of the Icelanders ; and in the month of February, 
1477, there arrives at Reykjavik, in a barque belonging 
to the port of Bristol, a certain long visaged, grey-eyed 
Genoese mariner, who was observed to take an amazing 
interest in hunting up whatever was known on the subject. 
Whether Columbus — ^for it was no less a personage than he 
— really learned anything to confirm him in his noble reso- 
lutions, is uncertain ; but we have still extant an historical 
manuscript, written at all events before the year 1395, ^^^^^ 
is to say, one hundred years prior to Columbus' voyage, 
which contains a minute account of how a certain person 
named Lief, while sailing over to Greenland, was driven out 
of his course by contrary winds, until he found himself off 
an extensive and unknown coast, which increased in beau- 
ty and fertility as he descended south, and how, in conse- 
quence of the representation Lief made on his return, suc- 
cessive expeditions were undertaken in the same direction. 
On two occasions their wives seem to have accompanied 
the adventurers ; of one ship's company the skipper was a 
lady : while two parties even wintered in the new land, built 
houses, and prepared to colonize. For some reason how 



38 LETTERS FROM HIGH LA TI TUBES. [VI 

ever, the intention was abandoned ; and in process of time 
tliese early voyages came to be considered as apocryphal 
as the Phoenician circumnavigation of Africa in the time of 
Pharaoh Necho. 

It is quite uncertain how low a latitude in America the 
Northmen ever reached ; but from the description given of 
the scenery, products, and inhabitants, — from the mildness 
of the weather, — and from the length of the day on the 
2ist of December, — it is conjectured they could not have 
descended much farther than Nev/foundland, Nova Scotia, 
or, at most, the coast of Massachusetts.-^ 

But to return to more material matters. 

Yesterday — no — the day before — in fact I forget the 
date of the day — I don't believe it had one — all I know is, 
I have not been in bed since, — we dined at the Governor's ; 
— though dinner is too modest a term to apply to the enter- 
tainment. 

The invitation was for four o'clock, and at half-past 
three we pulled ashore in the gig ; I, innocent that I was, 
in a well-fitting white waistcoat. 

The Government House, like all the others, is built of 
wood, on the top of a hillock ; the only accession of dignity 
it can boast being a little bit of mangy kitchen-garden that 
hangs down in front to the road, like a soiled apron. There 
was no lock, handle, bell, or knocker to the door, but im- 
mediately on our approach, a servant presented himself, and 
ushered us in to the room where Count Trampe was wait- 
ing to welcome us. After having been presented to his 
wife, we proceeded to shake hands with the other guests, 
most of whom I already knew ; and I was glad to find that 

I There is a certain piece of rock on the Taunton river, in Massa- 
chusetts, called the Deighton Stone, on which are to be seen rude con- 
figurations, for a long time supposed to be a Runic inscription executed 
by these Scandinavian voyagers ; but there can be now no longer any 
doubt of this inscription, such as it is, being of Indian execution. 



VI.] AN ICELANDIC DINNER, 39 

at all events in Iceland, people do not consider it necessary 
to pass the ten minutes which precede the announcement of 
dinner, as if they had assembled to assist at the opening of 
their entertainer's will, instead of his oysters. The com- 
pany consisted of the chief dignitaries of the island, includ- 
ing the Bishop, the Chief Justice, etc., etc., some of them 
in uniform, and all with holiday faces. As soon as the 
door was opened. Count Trampe tucked me under his arm 
— two other gentlemen did the same to my two companions 
—and we streamed into the dining-room. The table was 
very prettily arranged with flowers, plate, and a forest of 
glasses. Fitzgerald and I were placed on either side of 
our host, the other guests, in due order, beyond. On my 
left sat the rector, and opposite, next to Fitz, the chief 
physician of the island. Then began a series of transac- 
tions of which I have no distinct recollection ; in fact, the 
events of the next five hours recur to me in as great disarray 
as reappear the vestiges of a country that has been disfig- 
ured by some deluge. If I give you anything like a con- 
nected account of what passed, you must thank Sigurdr's 
more solid temperament ; for the Doctor looked quite 
foolish when I asked him — tried to feel my pulse — could 
not find it — and then wrote the following prescription, 
which I believe to be nothing more than an invoice of 
the number of bottles he himself disposed of.-^ 

I gather, then, from evidence — internal and otherwise — 
that the dinner was excellent, and that we were helped 



Copy of Dr. F's prescription : 




B vin : claret : 


iii btls. 


vin : champ : 


iv btls. 


vin : sherr ; 


K btl. 


vin : Rheni : 


ii btls. 


aqua vitae 


viii gls. 


trigint \ poc : aegrot : 


: cap : quotjd : 



Reik : die Martis, JunLi 27. 



C. E. F 



40 LETTERS FROM HIGH LA TI TUBES. [VI. 

in Benjamite proportions ; but as before the soup was fin- 
ished I was already hard at work hob-nobbing with my two 
neighbors, it is not to be expected I should remember the 
bill of fare. 

With the peculiar manners used in Scandinavian skoal- 
drinking I was already well acquainted. In the nice con- 
duct of a wine glass I knew that I excelled, and having an 
hereditary horror of heel-taps, I prepared with a firm heart 
to respond to the friendly provocations of my host. I only 
wish you could have seen how his kind face beamed with 
approval when I chinked my first bumper against his, and 
having emptied it at a draught, turned it towards him bot- 
tom upwards, with the orthodox twist. Soon however, 
things began to look more serious even than I had expected. 
I knew well that to refuse a toast, or to half empty your 
glass, was considered churlish. I had come determined to 
accept my host's hospitality as cordially as it was offered. I 
was willing, at a pinch, to payer de ma persojine ; should he 
not be content with seeing me <2/his table, I was ready, if 
need were, to remain under it ! but at the rate we were then 
going it seemed probable this consummation would take 
place before the second course : so, after having exchanged 
a dozen rounds of sherry and champagne with my two 
neighbors, I pretended not to observe that my glass had 
been refilled ; and like the sea-captain, who, slipping from 
between his two opponents, left them to blaze away at 
each other the long night through, — withdrew from the 
combat. But it would not do ; with untasted bumpers, and 
dejected faces, they politely waited until I should give the 
signal for a renewal of /^^^/ilities, as they well deserved to 
be called. Then there came over me a horrid, wicked 
feeling. What if I should endeavor to floor the Governor 
and so literally turn the tables on him ! It is true I had 
lived for five-and-twenty years without touching wine, — ■ 
but was not I my great-grandfather's great-grandson, and 



VI.] AN ICELANDIC DINNER. 



41 



an Irish peer to boot ? Were there not traditions, too, on 
the other side of the house, of casks of claret brought up 
into the dining-room, the door locked, and the key thrown 
out of the window ? With such antecedents to sustain me 
I ought to be able to hold my own against the staunchest 
toper in Iceland ! So with a devil glittering in my left eye 
I winked defiance right and left, and away we went at it 
again for another five-and-forty minutes. At last their fire 
slackened : I had partially quelled both the Governor and 
the Rector, and still survived. It is true I did not feel 
comfortable ; but it was in the neighborhood of my v/aist- 
coat, not my head, I suffered. " I am not well but I will 
not out," I soliloquized, with Lepidus^ — '''^oq txot ro -rc/xJv," 
I would have added, had I dared. Still the neck of 
the banquet was broken — Fitzgerald's chair was not yet 
empty, — could we hold out perhaps a quarter of an hour 
longer, our reputation was established ; guess then my hor- 
ror, when the Icelandic Doctor, shouting his favorite dogma 
by way of battle cry, " Si trigintis guttis, morbum cur- 
are velis, erras," gave the signal for an unexpected onslaught 
and the twenty guests poured down on me in succession. I 
really thought I should run away from the house ; but 
the true family blood, I suppose, began to show itself, and 
v/ith a calmness almost frightful, I received them one by 
one. 

After this began the public toasts. 

Although up to this time I had kept a certain portion 
of my wits about me, the subsequent hours of the enter- 
tainment became henceforth developed in a dreamy mystery 
I can perfectly recall the look of the sheaf of glasses that 
stood before me, six in number ; I could draw the pattern 
of each ; I remember feeling a lazy wonder they should 
always be full, though I did nothing but empty them, — and 

I Antony and Cleopatra, 



42 LETTERS FROM HIGH LA TI TUBES. [VI. 

at last solved the phenomenon by concluding I had be- 
come a kind of Danaid whose punishment, not whose sen- 
tence, had been reversed ; then suddenly I felt as if I were 
disembodied, — a distant spectator of my own performances 
and of the feast at which my person remained seated. The 
voices of my host, of the Rector, of the Chief Justice, be- 
came thin and low, as though they reached me through a 
whispering tube ; and when I rose to speak, it was to an 
audience in another sphere, and in a language of another 
state of being : yet, however unintelligible to myself, I must 
have been in some sort understood, for at the end of each 
sentence, cheers, faint as the roar of waters on a far-off 
strand, floated towards me ; and if I am to believe a report 
of the proceedings subsequently shown us, I must have be- 
come polyglot in my cups. According to that report it 
seems the governor threw off (I wonder he did not do 
something else), with the Queen's health in French : to 
which I responded in the same language. Then the rector 
in English, proposed my health,— under the circumstances 
a cruel mockery, — but to which, ill as I was, I responded 
very gallantly by drinking to the beaux yeux of the Count- 
ess. Then somebody else drank success to Great Britain 
and I see it was followed by really a very learned discourse 
by Lord D., in honor of the ancient Icelanders ; during 
which he alluded to their discovery of America, and Col- 
umbus' visit. Then came a couple of speeches in Iceland- 
ic, after which the Bishop, in a magnificent Latin oration 
of some twenty minutes, a second time, proposes my health 
to which, utterly at my wits' end, I had the audacity to 
reply in the same language. As it is fit so great an effort 
of oratory should not perish, I send you some of its choic- 
est specimens : — 

" Viri illustres," I began, " insolitus ut sum ad publi- 
cum loquendum, ego propero respondere ad complimentum 
quod recte reverendus prelaticus mihi fecit, in proponendo 



V f J SPEECHIFYING IN LA TIN. 



43 



meam salutem : et supplico vos credere quod multum grat- 
ificatus et flattificatus sum honore tarn distincto. 

"Bibere, viri illustres, res est, quae in omnibus terris, 

* domum venit ad hominum negotia et pectora : ^ (i) re- 

* quirit liaustum longum, haustum fortem, et haustum om- 

* nes simul : ' (2) ut canit Poeta, ' unum tactum Naturae to- 
' turn orben facit consanguineum,' (3) et hominis Natura 
est — bibere (4). 

" Viri illustres, alterum est sentimentum equaliter univer- 
sale : terra communis super quam septentrionales et meri- 
dionales, eadem enthusiasma convenire possunt : est ne- 
cesse quod id nominarem ? Ad pulchrum sexum devotio ! 

" Amor regit palatium, castra, lucum : (5) Dubito sub 
quo capite vestram jucundam civitalem numerare debeam. 
Palatium ? non Regem ! Castra ? non milites ! lucum ? 
non ullam arborem habetis ! Tamen Cupido vos dominat 
baud aliter quam alios, — et virginum Islandarum pulchri- 
tudo, per omnes regiones cognita est. 

" Bibamus salutem earum, et confusionem ad omnes 
bacularios : speramus quod eas caroe et benedictae creaturag 
invenient tot maritos quot velint, — quod geminos quotta- 
nis habeant, et quod earum fili^e, maternum exemplum se- 
quentes, gentem Islandicam perpetuent in saecula s^cu- 
lorum." 

The last words mechanically rolled out, in the same 

1 As the happiness of these quotations seemed to produce a very 
pleasing effect on my auditors, I subjoin a translation of them for Ihe 
benefit of the unlearned : — 

1. "Comes home to men's business and bosoms." — Paterfainili.is^ 
Times. 

2. " A long pull, a strong pull, and a pull all together." — Nelson ai 
the Nile. 

3. " One touch of nature makes the whole world kin." — Jeremy 
Bentham. 

4. Apothegm by the late Lord Mountcoffeehouse. 

<^. " Love rules the court, the camp, the grove." — Venerable Bede. 



44 LETTERS FROM HIGH LATITUDES. [VI. 

** ore rotundo " with which the poor old Dean of Christ- 
church used to finish his Gloria, etc., in the Cathedral. 

Then followed more speeches, — a great chinking of 
glasses, — a Babel of conversation, — a kind of dance round 
the table, while we successively gave each alternate hand, 
as in the last figure of the Lancers, — a hearty embrace from 
the Governor, — and finally, — silence, daylight, and fresh air, 
as we stumbled forth into the street. 

Now what was to be done ? To go to bed was impossi- 
ble. It was eleven o'clock by our watches, and as bright 
as noon. Fitz said it was twenty-two o'clock ; but by this 
time he had reached that point of enlargement of the mind, 
and development of the visual organs, which is expressed 
by the term " seeing double," — though he now pretends he 
was only reckoning time in the Venetian manner. We were 
in the position of three fast young men about Reykjavik, 
determined to make a night of it, but without the where- 
withal. There were neither knockers to steal, nor watch- 
men to bonnet. At last we remembered that the apotheca- 
ry's wife had a conversazione, to which she had kindly in- 
vited us ; and accordingly, off we went to her house. Here 
we found a number of French officers, a piano, and a young 
lady j in consequence of which the drum soon became a 
ball. Finally, it was proposed we should dance a reel ; the 
second lieutenant of the ''^Artemise'' had once seen one when 
his ship was riding out a gale in the Clyde ; — the little lady 
had frequently studied a picture of the Highland fling on 
the outside of a copy of Scotch music ; — I could dance a 
jig — the set was complete, all we wanted was music. Luck- 
ily the lady of the house knew the song of " Annie Laurie,'* 
' — played fast it made an excellent reel tune. As you may 
suppose, all succeeded admirably ; we nearly died of laugh- 
ing, and I only wish Lord Breadalbane had been by to see. 

At one in the morning, our danseuse retiring to rest, the 
ball necessarily terminated ; but the Governor's dinner stil) 



VI.] WINGED RABBITS. 



45 



forbidding bed, we determined on a sail in the cutter to 
some islands about three-quarters of a mile out to sea ; and 
I do not think I shall ever forget the delicious sensation of 
lying down lazily in the stern-sheets, and listening to the 
rippling of the water against the bows of the boat, as she 
glided away towards them. The dreamy, misty landscape, 
— each headland silently sleeping in the unearthly light, — 
Sncefell, from whose far-off peaks the midnight sun, though 
lost to us, had never faded, — the Plutonic crags that stood 
around, so gaunt and weird, — the quaint fresh life I had been 
lately leading, — all combined to promise such an existence 
of novelty and excitement in that strange Arctic region on 
the threshold of which we were now pausing, that I could 
not sufficiently congratulate myself on our good fortune. 
Soon, however, the grating of our keel upon the strand dis- 
turbed my reflections, and by the time I had unaccounta- 
bly stepped up to my knees in the water, I was thoroughly 
awake, and in a condition to explore the island. It seemed 
to be about three-quarters of a mile long, not very broad, 
and a complete rabbit-warren ; in fact, I could not walk a 
dozen yards without tripping up in the numerous burrows 
by which the ground was honeycombed : at last, on turning 
a corner, we suddenly came on a dozen rabbits, gravel}'' sit- 
ting at the mouths of their holes. They were quite white, 
without ears, and with scarlet noses. I made several des- 
perate attempts to catch some of these singular animals, 
but though one or two allowed me to come pretty near, just 
as I thought my prize was secure, in some unaccountable 
manner — it made unto itself wings, and literally flew away ! 
Moreover, if my eyesight did not share the peculiar devel- 
opment which affected that of the Doctor's, I should say 
that these rabbits flew in paiis. Red-nosed, winged rab- 
bits ! I had never heard or read of the species ; and I nat- 
urally grew enthusiastic in the chase, hoping to bring home 
a choice specimen to astonish our English naturalists. With 



46 LETTERS FROM HIGH LA TI TUBES. [VI. 

some difficulty we managed to catch one or two, which had 
run into their holes instead of flying away. They bit and 
scratched like tiger-cats, and screamed like parrots ; indeed, 
on a nearer inspection, I am obliged to confess that they 
assumed the appearance of birds,^ which may perhaps ac- 
count for their powers of flight. A slight confusion still 
remains in my mind as to the real nature of the creatures. 
At about nine o'clock we returned to breakfast ; and the 
rest of the day was spent in taking leave of our friends, and 
organizing the baggage-train, which was to start at mid- 
night, under the command of the cook. The cavalcade 
consisted of eighteen horses, but of these only one-half 
were laden, two animals being told off to each burthen, 
which is shifted from the back of the one to that of the oth- 
er every four hours. The pack-saddles were rude, but ser- 
viceable articles, with hooks on either side, on which a pair 
of oblong little chests were slung ; strips of turf being stuf- 
fed beneath to prevent the creature's back being galled. 
Such of our goods as could not be conveniently stowed 
away in the chests were fitted on to the top, in whatever 
manner their size and weight admitted, each pony carrying 
about 140 lbs. The photographic apparatus caused us the 
greatest trouble, and had to be distributed between two 
beasts. As was to be expected, the guides who assisted 
us packed the nitrate of silver bath upside down ; an out- 
rage the nature of which you cannot appreciate. At last 
everything was pretty well arranged, — guns, powder, shot, 
tea-kettles, rice, tents, beds, portable soups, etc., all stowed 
away — when the desponding Wilson came to me, his chin 
sweeping the ground, to say — that he very much feared the 
cook would die of the ride, — that he had never been on 
horseback in his life, — that as an experiment he had hired 

1 The Puffin {Alca arctica)lxi Icelandic, Soe-papagoie ; In Scotland, 
Priest ; and in Cornwall, Pope. 



VT.] WINGED RABBITS. 47 

a pony that very morning at his own charges, — had been 
run away with, but having been caught and brought home 
by a honest Icelander, was -now lying down — that position 
being the one he found most convenient. 

As the first day's journey was two-and-thirty miles, and 
would probably necessitate his being twelve or thirteen 
hours in the saddle, I began to be really alarmed for my 
poor chef; but finding on inquiry that these gloomy prog- 
nostics were entirely voluntary on the part of Mr. Wilson, 
that the ofiicer in question was full of zeal, and only too 
anxious to add horsemanship to his other accomplishments, 
I did not interfere. As for Wilson himself, it is not a mar- 
vel if he should see things a little askew ; for some unac- 
countable reason, he chose to sleep last night in the open 
air, on the top of a hen coop, and naturally awoke this 
morning with a crick in his neck, and his face so immov- 
ably fixed over his left shoulder, that the efforts of all the 
ship's company have not been able to twist it back ; with 
the help of a tackle, however, I think we shall eventually 
brace it square again. 

At two v/e went to lunch with the Rector. The enter- 
tainment bore a strong family likeness to our last night's 
dinner ; but as I wanted afterwards to exhibit my magic 
lantern to his little daughter Raghnilder, and a select par- 
ty of her young friends, we contrived to elude doing full 
justice to it. During the remainder of the evening, like 
Job's children, we went about feasting from house to house, 
taking leave of friends who could not have been kinder 
had they known us all our lives, and interchanging little 
gifts and souvenirs. With the Governor I have left a print 
from the Princess Royal's drawing of the dead soldier in 
the Crimea. From the Rector of the cathedral church I 
have received some very curious books — almost the first 
printed in the island ; I have been very anxious to obtain 
some specimens of ancient Icelandic manuscripts, but the 



48 



LETTERS FROM HIGH LATITUDES. 



[VI. 



island has long since been ransacked of its literary treas- 
ures ; and to the kindness of the French consul I am in- 
debted for a charming little white fox, the drollest and 
prettiest little beast I ever saw. 

Having dined on board the " Arfemise,''^ we adjourned 
at eleven o'clock to the beach to witness the departure of 
the baggage. The ponies were all drawn up in one long 
file, the head of each being tied to the tail of the one im- 
mediately before him. Additional articles were stowed 
away here and there among the boxes. The last instructions 
were given by Sigurdr to the guides, and everything was 
declared ready for a start. 

The jovial Wilson rides with us to-morrow. Unless we 
get his head round during the night, he will have to sit 
facing his horse's tail, in order to see before him. 

We do not seem to run any danger of falling short of 
provisions, as by all accounts there are birds enough in the 
interior of the country to feed an Israelitish emigration. 




LETTER VII. 

KISSES WILSON ON HORSEBACK A LAVA PLATEAU THING- 
VALLA ALMANNAGIA RABNAGIA OUR TENT THE 

SHIVERED PLAIN WITCH-DROWNING A PARLIAMENTARY 

DEBATE, A. D. lOOO THANGBRAND THE MISSIONARY ^A 

GERMAN GNAT-CATCHER THE MYSTICAL MOUNTAINS 

SIR OLAF — HECKLA SKAPTA JOKUL THE FIRE DELUGE 

OF 1783 WE REACH THE GEYSIR STROKR FITZ'S BONNE 

FORTUNE MORE KISSES AN ERUPTION — PRINCE NAPO- 
LEON — RETURN — TRADE — POPULATION — A MUTINY THE 

REINE HORTENSE THE SEVEN DUTCHMEN A BALL LOW 

DRESSES NORTHWARD HO ! 

Reykjavik, July 7, 1S56. 

At last I have seen the famous Geysirs, of which every 
one has heard so much ; but I have also seen Thingvalla, 
of which no one has heard anything. The Geysirs are cer- 
tainly wonderful marvels of nature, but more wonderful, 
more marvellous is Thingvalla ; and if the one repay you 
for crossing the Spanish Sea, it would be worth while to 
go round the world to reach the other. 

Of the boiling fountains I think I can give you a good 
idea, but whether I can contrive to draw for you anything 
like a comprehensible picture of the shape and nature of 
the Almannagja, the Hrafnagja, and the lava vale, called 
Thingvalla, that lies between them, I am doubtful. Before 
coming to Iceland I had read every account that had been 
written of Thingvalla by any former traveller, aid when I 
saw it, it appeared to me a place of which I had never 
heard ; so I suppose I shall come to grief in as melancholy 

4 '' 



5 o LE ITERS FROM HIGH LA TI TUBES. \yi I 

a manner as my predecessors, whose ineffectual pages 
whiten tlie entrance to tlie valley they hav^e failed to 
describe. 

Having superintended — as I thinly I mentioned to you 
in my last letter— the midnight departure of the cook, 
guides, and luggage, we returned on board for a good 
night's rest, which we all needed. The start was settled 
for the next morning at eleven o'clock, and you may sup- 
pose we were not sorry to find, on waking, the bright joy- 
ous sunshine pouring down through the cabin skylight, and 
illuminating the white-robed, well-furnished breakfast-table 
with more than usual splendor. At the appointed hour 
we rowed ashore to where our eight ponies — two being as- 
signed to each of us, to be ridden alternately — were stand- 
ing ready bridled and saddled, at the house of one of our 
kindest friends. Of course, though but just risen from 
breakfast, the inevitable invitation to eat and drink 
awaited us ; and another half-hour was spent in sipping 
cups of coffee poured out for us with much laughter by 
our hostess and her pretty daughter. At last, the neces- 
sary libations accomplished, we rose to go. Turning round 
to Fitz, I whispered, how I had always understood it was 
the proper thing in Iceland for travellers departing on a 
journey to kiss the ladies who had been good enough to 
entertain them, — little imagining he would take me at my 
word. Guess then my horror, wdien I suddenly saw him, 
with an intrepidity I envied but dared not imitate, first em- 
brace the mamma, by way of prelude, and then proceed, 
in the most natural manner possible, to make the same 
tender advances to the daughter. I confess I remained 
dumb with consternation j the room swam round before 
me ; I expected the next minute we should be packed 
neck and crop into the street, and that the young lady 
would have gone off into hysterics. It turned out, how- 
ever, that such was the very last thing she was thinking of 



51 



VI I J WE START. 

doing. With a simple frankness that became her more 
than all the boarding-school graces in the world, her eyes 
dancing with mischief and good humor, she met him half 
way, and pouting out two rosy lips, gave him as hearty a 
kiss as it might ever be the good fortune of one of us he- 
creatures to receive. From that moment I determined to 
conform for the future to the customs of the inhabitants. 




Fresh from favors such as these, it was not surprising 
we should start in the highest spirits. With a courtesy 
peculiar to Iceland, Dr. Hjaltelin, the most jovial of doc- 
tors, — and another gentleman, insisted on conveying us the 
first dozen miles of our journey ; and as we clattered away 



52 LETTERS FROM HIGH LATITUDES. [VII. 

through the wooden streets, I think a merrier party never 
set out from Reykjavik. In front scampered the three 
spare ponies, without bridles, saddles, or any sense of 
moral responsibility, flinging up their heels, biting and 
neighing like mad things ; then came Sigurdr, now become 
our chief, surrounded by the rest of the cavalcade ; and 
finally, at a little distance, plunged in profound mel- 
ancholy, rode Wilson. Never shall I forget his appear- 
ance. During the night his head had come partially 
straight, but by way of precaution, I suppose, he had con- 
ceived the idea of burying it down to the chin in a huge 
seal-skin helmet I had given him against the inclemencies 
of the Polar Sea. As on this occasion the thermometer 
was at Si'*, and a coup-de-sokil was the chief thing to be 
feared, a ton of fur round his skull was scarcely necessary. 
Seamen's trousers, a bright scarlet jersey, and jack-boots 
fringed with cat-skin, completed his costume ; and as he 
proceeded along in his usual state of chronic consternation, 
with my rifle slung at his back and a couple of telescopes 
over his shoulder, he looked the image of Robinson Cru- 
soe, fresh from having seen the foot-print. 

A couple of hours' ride across the lava plain we had 
previously traversed brought us to a river, where our 
Reykjavik friends, after showing us a salmon weir, finally 
took their leave, with many kind wishes for our prosperity. 
On looking through the clear water that hissed and bubbled 
through the wooden sluice, the Doctor had caught sight of 
an apparently dead salmon, jammed up against its wooden 
bars ; but on pulling him out, he proved to be still breath- 
ing, though his tail was immovably twisted into his mouth, 
A consultation taking place, the Doctors both agreed that 
it was a case of pleurosthotonos, brought on by mechani- 
cal injury to the spine (we had just been talking of Pal- 
mer's trial), and that he was perfectly fit for food. In ac- 
cordance with this verdict, he was knocked on the head. 



VII.J SADNESS AND JOLLITY. 53 

and slung at Wilson's saddle-bow. Left to ourselves, we 
now pushed on as rapidly as we could, though the track 
across the lava was so uneven, that every moment I expect- 
ed Snorro (for thus have I christened my pony) would be 
on his nose. In another hour we were among the hills. 
The scenery of this part of the journey was not very beau- 
tiful, the mountains not being remarkable either for their 
size or shape, but here and there we came upon pretty 
bits, not unlike some of the barren parts of Scotland, with 
quiet blue lakes sleeping in the solitude. 

After wandering along for some time in a broad open 
valley, that gradually narrowed to a glen, we reached a 
grassy patch. As it was past three o'clock, Sigurdr pro- 
posed a halt. 

Unbridling and unsaddling our steeds, we turned them 
loose iipon the pasture, and sat ourselves down on a sunny 
knoll to lunch. For the first time since landing in Iceland 
I felt hungry ; as, for the first time, four successive hours 
had elapsed without our having been compelled to take a 
snack. The appetites of the ponies seemed equally good, 
though probably with them hunger was no such novelty. 
Wilson looked sad. He confided to me privately that he 
feared his trousers would not last such jolting many days ; 
but his dolefulness, like a bit of minor in a sparkling mel- 
ody, only made our jollity more radiant. In about an hour 
Sigurdr gave the signal for a start ; and having caught, 
saddled, and bridled three unridden ponies, we drove 
Snorro and his companions to the front, and proceeded on 
our way rejoicing. After an hour's gradual ascent through 
a picturesque ravine, we emerged upon an immense deso- 
late plateau of lava, that stretched away for miles and 
miles like a great stony sea. A more barren desert you 
cannot conceive. Innumerable boulders, relics of the 
glacial period, encumbered the track. We could only go 
at a foot-pace. Not a blade of grass, not a strip of green, 



54 LE TTERS FROM HIGH LA TI TUBES. [^I I . 

enlivened the prospect, and the only sound we heard was 
the croak of the curlew and the wail of the plover. Hour 
after hour we plodded on, but the grey waste seemed in- 
terminable, boundless ; and the only consolation Sigurdr 
v;ould vouchsafe was, that our journey's end lay on this 
side of some purple-mountains that peeped like the tents 
of a demon leaguer above the stony horizon. 

As it was already eight o'clock, and we had been told 
the entire distance from Reykjavik to Thingvalla was only 
five-and-thirty miles, I could not comprehend how so great 
a space should still separate us from our destination. 
Concluding more time had been lost in shooting, lunching, 
etc., by the way than we had supposed, I put my pony into 
a canter, and determined to make short work of the dozen 
miles which seemed still to lie between us and the hills, 
on this side of which I understood from Sigurdr our en- 
campment for the night was to be pitched. 

Judge, then, of my astonishment when, a few minutes 
afterwards, I was arrested in full career by a tremendous 
precipice, or rather chasm, which suddenly gaped beneath 
my feet, and completely separated the barren plateau we 
had been so painfully traversing from a lovely, gay, sunlit 
flat, ten miles broad, that lay — sunk at a level lower by a 
hundred feet — between us and the opposite mountains. I 
was never so completely taken by surprise ; Sigurdr's pur- 
posely vague description of our halting-place was account- 
ed for. 

We had reached the famous Almanna Gja. Like a 
black rampart in the distance, the corresponding chasir of 
the Hrafna Gja cut across the lower slope of the distant 
hills, and between them now slept in beauty and sunshine 
the broad verdant ^ plain of Thingvalla. 

Ages ago, — who shall say how long? — some vast com- 

I The plain of Thingvalla is in a great measure clothed with birch 
brushwood. 



VII.J 



ALMANNA GJA. 



57 



motion shook the foundations of the island, and bubbling 
up from sources far away amid the inland hills, a fiery del- 
uge must have rushed down between their ridges, until, 
escaping from the narrower gorges, it found space to 
spread itself into one-broad sheet of molten stone over an 
entire district of country, reducing its varied surface to 
one vast blackened level. 

One of two things then occurred : either the vitrified 
mass contracting as it cooled, — the centre area of fifty 
square miles burst asunder at either side from the adjoin- 
ing plateau, and sinking down to its present level, left the 
two parallel Gjas, or chasms, which form its lateral bound- 
aries, to mark the limits of the disruption; or else, while 
the pith or marrow of the lava was still in a fluid state, its 
upper surface became solid, and formed a roof beneath 
which the molten stream flowed on to lower levels, leaving 
a vast cavern into which the upper crust subsequently 
plumjied down.^ 

The enclosed section will perhaps help you a little to 
comprehend what I am afraid my description will have 
failed to bring before you. 

5 3 




I Gjas. 2 Lava deluge. 

4 Thingvalla sunk to a lower level. 



3 Original surface. 

5 Astonished traveller. 



I I feel it is very presumptuous in me to hazard a conjecture on a 
subject with which my want of geological knowledge renders me quite 
incompetent to deal ; but however incorrect either of the above sup- 
positions may be justly considered by the philosophers, they will per- 



58 LETTERS FROM HIGH LA TITUDES. [VII, 

1. Are the two chasms called respectively Almanna 
Gja, ^ or Main Gja, and Hrafna Gja, or Raven's Gja. In 
the act of disruption the sinking mass fell in, as it were, 
upon itself, so that one side of the Gja slopes a good deal 
back as it ascends ; the other side is perfectly perpendicu- 
lar, and at the spot I saw it upwards of one hundred feet 
high. In the lapse of years the bottom of the Almanna 
Gja has become gradually filled up to an even surface, 
covered with the most beautiful turf, except where a river, 
leaping from the higher plateau over the precipice, has 
chosen it for a bed. You must not suppose, however, that 
the disruption and land-slip of Thingvalla took place quite 
in the spick and span manner the section might lead you 
to imagine ; in some places the rock has split asunder very 
unevenly, and the Hrafna Gja is altogether a very untidy 
rent, the sides having fallen in in many places, and almost 
filled up the ravine with ruins. On the other hand, in the 
Almanna Gja, you can easily distinguish on the one face 
marks and formations exactly corresponding, though at a 
different level, with those on the face opposite, so cleanly 
were they separated. 

2. Is the sea of lava now lying on the top of the origi- 
nal surface. Its depth I had no means of ascertaining. 

3. Is the level of the surface first formed when the lava 
was vStill hot. 

4. Is the plain of Thingvalla, eight miles broad, its sur- 
face shattered into a network of innumerable crevices and 
fissures fifty or sixty feet deep, and each wide enough to 

haps serve to convey to the unlearned reader, for whose amusement 
(not instruction) these letters are intended, the impression conveyed 
to my mind by what I saw, and so help out the picture I am trying to 
fill in for him. 

I Almanna may be translated main ; it means literally all men's; 
when applied to a road, it would mean the road along which all the 
world travel. 



VII.] 



PLAIN OF THING VALLA. 



59 



have swallo/ved the entire company of Korah. At the 
foot of the plain lies a vast lake, into which, indeed, it 
may be said to slope, with a gradual inclination from the 




I Plain of Thingvalla 
3 Lava plateau. 

5 Rabna Gja. 



2 Lake, 

4 Almanna Gja. 



north, the imprisoned waters having burst up through the 
lava strata, as it subsided beneath themo Gazing down 
through their emerald depths, you can still follow the pat- 
tern traced on the surface of the bottom, by cracks and 
chasms similar to those into which the dry portion of 
Thingvalla has been shivered. 

The accompanying ground plan will, I trust, complete 
what is wanting to fill up the picture I so long to conjure 
up before the mind's eye. It is the last card I have to 
play, and, if unsuccessful, T must give up the task in des- 
pair. 



6o LE TTERS FROM HIGH LA TI TUBES. [VII. 

But to return to where I left myself, on the edge of the 
cliff, gazing down with astonished eyes over the panorama 
of land and water embedded at my feet. I could scarcely 
speak for pleasure and surprise ; Fitz was equally taken 
aback, and as for Wilson, he looked as if he thought we 
had arrived at the end of the world. After having allowed 
us sufficient time to admire the prospect Sigurdr turned to 
the left, along the edge of the precipice, until we reached 
a narrow pathway accidentally formed down a longitudinal 
niche in the splintered face of the cliff, which led across 
the bottom, and up the opposite side of the Gja, into the 
plain of Thingvalla. By rights our tents ought to have 
arrived before us, but when we reached the little glebe 
where we expected to find them pitched, no signs of ser- 
vants, guides, or horses were to be seen. 

As we had not overtaken them ourselves, their non-ap- 
pearance was inexplicable. Wilson suggested that, the 
cook having died on the road, the rest of the party must 
have turned aside to bury him ; and that we had passed 
unperceived during the interesting ceremony. Be the 
cause what it might, the result was not agreeable. We 
were very tired, very hungry, and it had just begun to 
rain. 

It is true there was a clergyman's house and a church, 
both built of stones covered with turf sods, close by j at 
the one, perhaps, we could get milk, and in the other we 
could sleep, as our betters — including Madame Pfeiffer — 
had done before us ; but its inside looked so dark, and 
damp, and cold, and charn el-like, that one really doubted 
wdiether lying in the churchyard would not be snugger. 
You may guess, then, how great was my relief when our 
belated baggage-train was descried against the sky-line, as 
it slowly wended its way along the purple edge of the 
precipice towards the staircase by which we had already 
descended. 



VII. J A PICNIC. 61 

Half an hour afterwards the little plot of grass select- 
ed for the site of our encampment was covered over with 
poles, boxes, cauldrons, tea-kettles, and all the parapher- 
nalia of a gipsy settlement. Wilson's Kaffir experience 
came at once into play, and under his solemn but effective 
superintendence, in less than twenty minutes the horn- 
headed tent rose, dry and taut upon the sward. Having 
carpeted the floor with oil-skin rugs, and arranged our 
three beds with their clean crisp sheets, blankets, and cov- 
erlets complete, at the back, he proceeded to lay out the 
dinner-table at the tent door with as much decorum as if 
we were expecting the Archbishop of Canterbury. All 
this time the cook, who looked a little pale, and moved, I 
observed with difficulty, was mysteriously closeted with a 
spirit-lamp inside a diminutive tent of his own, through 
the door of which the most delicious whiffs occasionally 
permeated. Olaf and his companions had driven off the 
horses to their pastures ; and Sigurdr and I were deep in 
a game of chess. Luckily, the shower, which threatened 
us a moment, had blown over. Though now almost nine 
o'clock p. M., it was as bright as mid-day ; the sky burned 
like a dome of gold, and silence and deep peace brooded 
over the fair grass-robed plain, that once had been so fear- 
fully convulsed. 

You may be quite sure our dinner went off merrily ; 
the tetanus-afflicted salmon proved excellent, the plover 
and ptarmigan were done to a turn, the mulligatawny be- 
yond all praise ; but alas ! I regret to add, that he — the 
artist, by whose skill these triumphs had been achieved — 
his task accomplished, — no longer sustained by the facti 
tious energy resulting from his professional enthusiasm,— 
at last succumbed, and, retiring to the recesses of his tent, 
like Psyche in the " Princess," lay down, " and neither 
spoke nor stirred." 

After another game or two of chess, a pleasant chat, a 



62 LETTERS FROM HIGH LATITUDES, [VII. 

gentle stroll, we also turned in ; and for the next eight 
hours perfect silence reigned throughout our little encamp- 
ment, except when Wilson's sob-like snores shook to their 
foundation the canvas walls that sheltered him. 

When I awoke — I do not know at what hour, for from 
this time we kept no account of day or night — the white 
sunlight was streaming into the tent, and the whole land- 
scape was gleaming and glowing in the beauty of one of 
the hottest summer-days I ever remember. We breakfast- 
ed in our shirt-sleeves, and I was forced to wrap my head 
in a white handkerchief for fear of the sun. As we were 
all a little stiff after our ride, I could not resist the tempta- 
tion of spending the day where we were, and examining 
more leisurely the wonderful features of the neighborhood. 
Independently of its natural curiosities, Thingvalla was 
most interesting to me on account of the historical asFO- 
ciations connected with it. Here, long ago, at a period 
when feudal despotism was the only government known 
throughout Europe, free parliaments used to sit in peace, 
and regulate the affairs of the young Republic ; and to 
this hour the precincts of its Commons House of Parlia- 
ment are as distinct and unchanged as on the day when 
the high-hearted fathers of the emigration first consecrated 
them to the service of a free nation. By a freak of nature, 
as the subsiding plain cracked and shivered into twenty 
thousand fissures, an irregular oval area, of about two hun- 
dred feet by fifty, was left almost entirely surrounded by a 
crevice so deep and broad as to be utterly impassable ;^ 
at one extremity alone a scanty causeway connected it with 
the adjoining level, and allowed of access to its interior. 
It is true, just at one point the encircling chasm grows so 
narrow as to be within the possibility of a jump ; and an 
ancient worthy, named Flosi, pursued by his enemies, did 
actually take it at a fly ; but as leaping an inch short would 
have entailed certain drowning in the bright green waters 



VIL] 



THE ALTHING. 



^l 



that sleep forty feet below, you can conceive there was 
never much clanger of this entrance becoming a thorough- 
fare. I confess that for one moment, while contemplating 
the scene of Flosi's exploit, I felt, — like a true Briton, — 
an idiotic desire to be able to say that I had done the 
same : — that I survive to write this letter is a proof of my 
having come subsequently to my senses. 





A. The Althing. 

C. The place where Flosi jumped. 



B. The Hill of Laws. 
D. Adjacent Chasm. 



This spot then, erected by nature almost into a fortress, 
the founders of the Icelandic constitution chose for the 
meetings of their Thing,^ or Parliament, armed guards de- 
fended the entrance, while the grave bonders deliberated 
in security within : to this day, at the upper end of the 

1 From thing, to speak. We have a vestige of the same word in 
Dingwall, a town of Ross-shire. 



64 LETTERS FROM HIGH LA TITUDES. [VII. 

place of meeting, may be seen the three hammocks, where 
sat in state the chiefs and judges of the land. 

But those grand old times have long since passed away. 
Along the banks of the Oxeraa no longer glisten the tents 
and booths of the assembled lieges ; no longer stalwart ber- 
serks guard the narrow entrance to the Althing ; ravens alone 
sit on the sacred Logberg ; and the floor of the old Icelandic 
House of Commons is ignominiously cropped by the sheep 
of the parson. For three hundred years did the gallant 
little Republic maintain its independence — three hundred 
years of unequalled literary and political vigor. At last 
its day of doom drew near. Like the Scotch nobles in the 
time of Elizabeth, their own chieftains intrigued against 
the liberties of the Icelandic people ; and in 1261 the 
island became an appanage of the Norwegian crown. Yet 
even the deed embodying the concession of their inde- 
pendence was drawn up in such haughty terms as to re- 
semble rather the offer of an equal alliance than the re- 
nunciation of imperial rights. Soon, however, the apathy 
which invariably benumbs the faculties of a people too en- 
tirely relieved from the discipline and obligation of self- 
government, lapped in complete inactivity, moral, political, 
and intellectual, — these once stirring islanders. On the 
amalgamation of the three Scandinavian monarchies, at 
the union of Calmar, the allegiance of the people of Ice- 
land was passively transferred to the Danish crown. Ever 
since that time, Danish proconsuls have administered their 
government, and Danish restrictions have regulated their 
trade. The traditions of their ancient autonomy have be- 
come as unsubstantial and obsolete as those which record 
vanished fame of their poets and historians, and the ex- 
ploits of their mariners. It is true, the adoption of the 
Lutheran religion galvanized for a moment into the sem- 
blance of activity the old literary spirit. A printing-press 
was introduced as early as 1530, and ever since the six- 




^Hiliiiiliiil 



VII.] A DEBATE, A. d. iooo. 67 

teenth century many works of merit have been produced 
from time to time by Icelandic genius. Shakespeare, Mil- 
ton, and Pope have been translated into the native tongue ; 
one of the best printed newspapers I have ever seen is 
now published at Reykjavik ; and the Colleges of Copen- 
hagen are adorned by many an illustrious Icelandic schol- 
ar; but the glory of the old days is departed, and it is 
across a wide desolate flat of ignoble annals, as dull and 
arid as their own lava plains, that the student has to look 
back upon the glorious drama of Iceland's early history. 
As I gazed around on the silent, deserted plain, and paced 
to and fro along the untrodden grass that now clothed the 
Althing, I could scarcely believe it had ever been the bat- 
tle-field where such keen and energetic wits encountered, 
— that the fire-scathed rocks I saw before me were the 
very same that had once inspired one of the most success- 
ful rhetorical appeals ever hazarded in a public assembly. 

As an account of the debate to which I allude has been 
carefully preserved, I may as well give you an abstract of 
it. A nfore characteristic leaf out of the Parliamentary 
Annals of Iceland you could scarcely have. 

In the summer of the year 1000, when Ethelred the 
Unready ruled in England, and fourteen years after Hugh 
Capet had succeeded the last Carlovingian on the throne 
of France, — the Icelandic legislature was convened for the 
consideration of a very important subject — no less impor- 
tant, indeed, than an inquiry into the merits of a new re- 
ligion lately brought into the country by certain emissa- 
ries of Olaf Tryggveson, — the first Christian king of Nor 
way, — -and the same who pulled down London bridge. 

The assembly met. The Norse missionaries were 
called upon to enunciate to the House the tenets of the 
faith they were commissioned to disclose ; and the debate 
began. Great and fierce was the difference of opinion. 
The good old Tory party, supported by all the authority of 



68 LETTERS FROM HIGH LA TITUDES. [VII. 

the Odin establishment, were violent in opposition. The 
Whigs advocated the new arrangement, and, as the king 
supported their own views, insisted strongly on the Di- 
vine right. Several liberal members permitted themselves 
to speak sarcastically of the Valhalla tap, and the ankles 
of Freya. The discussion was at its height, when sudden- 
ly a fearful peal of subterranean thunder roared around 
the Althing. " Listen ! " cried an orator of the Pagan 
party ; " how angry is Odin that we should even consider 
the subject of a new religion. His fires will consume us." 
To which a ready debater on the other side replied, by 
"begging leave to ask the honorable gentleman, — with 
whom were the gods angry when these rocks were melted ? " 
— pointing to the devastated plain around him. Taking 
advantage of so good a hit, the Treasury " whips" imme- 
diately called for a division ; and the Christian religion was 
adopted by a large majority. 

The first Christian missionaries who came to Iceland 
seem to have had a rather peculiar manner of enforcing 
the truths of the Gospel. Their leader was a person of 
of the name of Thangbrand. Like the protestant clergy- 
men Queen Elizabeth despatched to convert Ireland, he 
was bundled over to Iceland principally because he was 
too disreputable to be allowed to live in Norway. The 
old Chronicler gives a very quaint description of him. 
"Thangbrand," he says, " was a passionate, ungovernable 
person and a great man-slayer; but a good scholar, and 
clever. Thorvald, and Veterlid the Scald, composed a 
lampoon against him ; but he killed them both outright. 
Thangbrand was two years in Iceland, and was the death of 
three men before he left it." 

From the Althing we strolled over to the Almanna Gja, 
visiting the Pool of Execution on our way. As I have al- 
ready mentioned, a river from the plateau above leaps over 
the pre;ipice into the bottom of the Gja, and flows for a 



VII.] ALMANNA GJA. 69 

certain distance between its walls. At the foot of the fall 
the waters linger for a moment in a dark, deep, brimming 
pool, hemmed in by a circle of ruined rocks ; to this pool, in 
ancient times, all women convicted of capital crimes were 
immediately taken and drowned. Witchcraft seems to have 
been the principal weakness of ladies in those days, through- 
out the Scandinavian countries. For a long period no dis- 
grace was attached to its profession. Odin himself, we are 
expressly told, was a great adept, and always found himself 
very much exhausted at the end of his performance ; 
which leads me to think that perhaps he dabbled in electro- 
biology. At last the advent of Christianity threw discredit 
on the practice ; severe punishments were denounced 
against all who indulged in it ; and in the end its mys- 
teries became the monopoly of the Laplanders. 

All criminals, men and women, were tried by juries ; 
and that the accused had the power of challenging the 
jurymen empannelled to try them, appears from the follow- 
ing extract from the Book of Laws : — " The judges shall go 
out on Washday, /. ^., Saturday, and continue out for chal- 
lenges, until the stm comes on Thingvalla on the Lord's- 
day." And again, " The power of challenging shall cease 
as soon as the sun can be no longer seen above the western 
brink of the chasm, from the Logberg." 

Turning aside from what, I dare say, was the scene of 
many an unrecorded tragedy, we descended the gorge of 
the Almanna Gja, towards the lake : and I took advantage 
of the opportunity again to examine its marvellous con- 
struction. The perpendicular walls of rock rose on either 
hand from the flat greensward that carpeted its bottom, 
pretty much as the waters of the Red sea must have risen 
on each side of the fugitive Israelites. A blaze of light 
smote the face of one cliff, while the other lay in the deep- 
est shadow ; and on the rugged surface of each might still 
be traced corresponding articulations, that once had dove 



7 O LE TTERS FROM HIGH LA TI TUBES. [VI I. 

tailed into each other, ere the igneous mass was rent 
asunder. So unchanged, so recent seemed the vestiges of 
this convulsion, that I felt as if I had been admitted to 
witness one of nature's grandest and most violent operations, 
almost in the very act of its execution. A walk of about 
twenty minutes brought us to the borders of the lake — a 
glorious expanse of water, fifteen miles long, by eight miles 
broad, occupying a basin formed by the same hills, which 
must also, I imagine, have arrested the further progress of 
the lava torrent. A lovelier scene I have seldom witnessed. 
In the foreground lay huge masses of rock and lava, toss- 
ed about like the ruins of a world, and washed by waters 
as bright and green as polished malachite. Beyond a bevy 
of distant mountains, robed by the transparent atmosphere 
in tints unknown to Europe, peeped over each other's 
shoulders into the silver mirror at their feet, while here and 
there from among their purple ridges columns of white 
vapor rose like altar smoke toward the tranquil heaven. 

On returning home we found dinner waiting for us. I 
had invited the clergyman, and a German gentleman who 
was lodging with him, to give us the pleasure of their com- 
pany; and in ten minutes we had all become the best of 
friends. It is true the conversation was carried on in 
rather a wild jargon, made up of six different languages — ■ 
Icelandic, English, German, Latin, Danish, French — but 
in spite of the difficulty with which he expressed himself, 
it was impossible not to be struck with the simple earnest 
character of my German convive. He was about five-and 
twenty, a '•'' doctor philosophicB^'' and had come to Iceland to 
catch gnats. After having caught gnats in Iceland, he 
intended, he said, to spend some years in catching gnats in 
Spain — the privacy of Spanish gnats, as it appears, not 
having been hitherto invaded. The truth is, my guest was 
an entomologist, and in the pursuit of the objects of his 
study was evidently prepared to approach hardships and 



VII.] START FOR THE GEYSIRS. 71 

danger with a serenity that would not have been unworthy 
of the apostle of a new religion. It was almost touching 
to hear him describe the intensity of his joy when perhaps 
days and nights of fruitless labors were at last rewarded 
by the discovery of some hitherto unknown little fly ; and 
it was with my whole heart that, at parting, I wished him 
success in his career, and the fame that so much consci- 
entious labor merited. From my allusion to this last re- 
ward, however, he seemed almost to shrink, and, with a 
sincerity it was impossible to doubt, disclaimed as ignoble 
so poor a motive as a thirst for fame. His was one of 
those calm laborious minds, seldom found but among the 
Teutonic race, that — pursuing day by day with single- 
minded energy some special object — live in a noble obscu- 
rity, and die at last content with the consciousness of hav- 
ing added one other stone to that tower of knowledge men 
are building up toward heaven, even though the world 
should never learn what strong and patient hands have 
placed it there. 

The next morning we started for the Geysirs : this time 
dividing the bagg/age-train, and sending on the cook in 
light marching order, with the materials for dinner. The 
weather still remained unclouded, and each mile we ad- 
vanced disclosed some new wonder in the unearthly land- 
scape. A three hours' ride brought us to the Rabna Gja, 
the eastern boundary of Thingvalla, and, winding up its 
rugged face, we took our last look over the lovely plain 
beneath us, and then manfully set forward across the same 
kind of arid lava plateau as that which we had already 
traversed before arriving at the Almanna Gja. But instead 
of the boundless immensity which had then so much dis- 
heartened us, the present prospect was terminated by a 
range of quaint parti-colored hills, which rose before us in 
such fantastic shapes that I could not take my eyes off 
them. I do not know whether it was the strong coifee or 



72 LETTERS FROM HIGH LA TI TUBES. [VII. 

the invigorating air that stimulated my imagination ; but I 
certainly felt convinced I was coming to some mystical 
spot — out of space, out of time — where I should suddenly 
light upon a green-scaled griffin, or golden-haired princess, 
or other bonne fortune of the olden days. Certainly a more 
appropriate scene for such an encounter could not be con- 
ceived, than that which displayed itself, when we wheeled 
at last round the flank of the scorched ridge we had been 
approaching. A perfectly smooth grassy plain, about a 
league square, and shaped like a horse-shoe, opened before 
us, encompassed by bare cinder-like hills, that rose round 
— red, black, and yellow — in a hundred uncouth peaks of 
ash and slag. Not a vestige of vegetation relieved the 
aridity of their vitrified sides, while the verdant carpet at 
their feet only made the fire-moulded circle seem more 
weird and impassable. Had I had a trumpet and a lance, 
I should have blown a blast of defiance on the one, and 
having shaken the other toward the four corners of the 
world, would have calmly waited to see what next might 
betide. Three arrows shot bravely forward would have 
probably resulted in the discovery of a trap-door with an 
iron ring ; but having neither trumpet, lance, nor arrow, 
we simply alighted and lunched : yet even then I could 
not help thinking how lucky it was that, not eating dates, 
we could not inadvertently fling their stones into the eyes 
of any inquisitive genie who might be in the neighbor- 
hood. 

After the usual hour's rest and change of horses, we 
galloped away to the other side of the plain, and, doubling 
the further horn of the semicircle, suddenly found ourselves 
in a district as unlike the cinder mountains we had quitted 
as they had differed from the volcanic scenery of the day 
before. On the left lay a long rampart of green hills, 
opening up every now and then into Scottish glens and 
gorges, while from their roots to the horizon stretched a 



VII.] MOUNT HECLA. 73 

vast breadth of meadow-land, watered by two or three 
rivers, that wound, and twisted, and coiled about, like blue 
serpents. Here and there, white volumes of vapor, that 
rose in endless wreaths from the ground, told of mighty 
cauldrons at work beneath that moist cool verdant carpet ; 
while large silvery lakes, and flat-topped isolated hills, re- 
lieved the monotony of the level land, and carried on the 
eye to where the three snowy peaks of Mount Hecla shone 
cold and clear against the sky. 

Of course it was rather tantalizing to pass so near this 
famous burning mountain without having an opportunity 
of ascending it j but the expedition would have taken up 
too much time. In appearance Hecla differs very little 
from the innumerable other volcanic hills with which the 
island is studded. Its cone consists of a pyramid of stone 
and scoriae, rising to the height of about five thousand feet, 
and welded together by bands of molten matter which 
have issued from its sides. From a.d. 1004 to 1766 there 
have been twenty-three eruptions, occurring at intervals 
which have varied in duration from six to seventy-six years. 
The one of 1766 was remarkably violent. It commenced 
on the 5th of April by the appearance of a huge pillar of 
black sand mounting slowly into the heavens, accompanied 
by subterranean thunders, and all the other symptoms 
which precede volcanic disturbances. Then a coronet of 
flame encircled the crater ; masses of red rock, pumice, 
and magnetic stones were flung out with tremendous vio- 
lence to an incredible distance, and in such continuous 
multitudes as to resemble a swarm of bees clustering over 
the mountain. One boulder of pumice six feet in circum- 
ference was pitched twenty miles away ; another of mag- 
netic iron fell at a distance of fifteen. The surface of the 
earth was covered, for a circuit of one hundred and fifty 
miles, with a layer of sand four inches deep ; the air was 
so darkened by it, that at a place one hundred and forty 



74 LETTERS FROM HIGH LATITUDES. [VII= 

miles off, white paper held up at a little distance could not 
be distinguished from black. The fishermen could not put 
to sea on account of darkness, and the inhabitants of the 
Orkney islands were frightened out of their senses by 
showers of what they thought must be black snow. On 
the 9th of April, the lava began to overflow, and ran for 
five miles in a south-westerly direction, whilst, some days 
later, — in order that no element might be wanting to 
mingle in this devil's charivari, — a vast column of water, 
like Robin Hood's second arrow, split up through the 
cinder pillar to the height of several hundred feet ; the 
horror of the spectacle being further enhanced by an ac- 
companiment of subterranean cannonading and dire re- 
ports, heard at a distance of fifty miles. 

Striking as all this must have been, it sinks into com- 
parative tameness and insignificance, beside the infinitely 
more terrible phenomena which attended the eruption of 
another volcano, called Skapta Jokul. 

Of all countries in Europe, Iceland is the one which 
has been the most minutely mapped, not even excepting 
the ordnance survey of Ireland. The Danish Government 
seem to have had a hobby about it, and the result has been 
a chart so beautifully executed, that every little crevice, 
each mountain torrent, each flow of lava, is laid down with 
an accuracy perfectly astonishing. One huge blank, how- 
ever, in the south-west corner of this map of Iceland, mars 
the integrity of its almost microscopic delineations. To 
every other part of the island the engineer has succeeded 
in penetrating ; one vast space alone of about four hun- 
dred square miles has defied his investigation. Over the 
area occupied by the Skapta Jokul, amid its mountain- 
cradled fields of snow and icy ridges, no human foot has 
ever wandered. Yet it is from the bosom of this desert 
district that has descended the most frightful visitation 
ever known to have desolated the island. 



VII.] SKAPTA yOKUL. 75 

This event occurred in the year 1783. The preceding 
winter and spring had been unusually mild. Toward the end 
of May, a light bluish fog began to float along the confines 
of the untrodden tracts of Skapta, accompanied in the be- 
ginning of June by a great trembling of the earth. On the 
8th of that month, immense pillars of smoke collected over 
the hill country towards the north, and coming down against 
the wind in a southerly direction, enveloped the whole dis- 
trict of Sida in darkness, A whirlwind of ashes then swept 
over the face of the country, and on the loth, innumerable 
fire spouts were seen leaping and flaring amid the icy hol- 
lows of the mountain, while the river Skapta, one of the 
largest in the island, having first rolled down to the plain 
a vast volume of fetid waters mixed with sand, suddenly 
disappeared. 

Two days afterwards a stream of lava, issuing from 
sources to which no one has ever been able to penetrate, 
came sliding down the bed of the dried-up river, and in a 
little time, — though the channel was six hundred feet deep 
and two hundred broad, — the glowing deluge overflowed its 
banks, crossed the low country of Meddafland, ripping the 
turf up before it like a table-cloth, and poured into a great 
lake whose affrighted waters flew hissing and screaming 
into the air at the apprbach of the fiery intruder. Within 
a few more days the basin of the lake itself was complete- 
ly filled, and having separated into two streams, the unex- 
hausted torrent again recommenced its march ; in one di- 
rection overflowing some ancient lava fields, — in the other, 
re-entering the channel of the Skapta, and leaping down 
the lofty cataract of Stapafoss. But this was not all ; 
while one lava flood had chosen the Skapta for its bed, 
another, descending in a different direction, was working 
like ruin within and on either side the banks of the Hver- 
fisfliot, rushing into the plain, by all accounts, with even 
greater fury and velocity. Whether the two issued from 



76 LETTERS FROM HIGH LATITUDES. [VII. 

the same crater it is impossible to say, as the sources ol 
both were far away within the heart of the unapproach- 
able desert, and even the extent of lava flow can only 
be measured from the spot where it entered the inhabited 
districts. The stream which flowed down Skapta is calcu- 
lated to be about fifty miles in length by twelve or fifteen 
at its greatest breadth ; that which rolled down the Hver- 
fisfliot, at forty miles in length by seven in breadth. 
Where it was imprisoned, between the high banks of Skapta, 
the lava is five or six hundred feet thick ; but as soon as it 
spread out into the plain its depth never exceeded one hun- 
dred feet. The eruption of sand, ashes, pumice, and lava, 
continued till the end of August, when the Plutonic drama 
concluded with a violent earthquake. 

For a whole year a canopy of cinder-laden cloud hung 
over the island. Sand and ashes irretrievably overwhelmed 
thousands of acres of fertile pasturage. The Faroe islands, 
the Shetlands, and the Orkneys were deluged widi volcanic 
dust, which perceptibly contaminated even the pure skies 
of England and Holland. Mephitic vapors tainted the 
atmosphere of the entire island ; — even the grass, which no 
cinder rain had stifled, completely withered up ; — the fish 
perished in the poisoned sea. A murrain broke out among 
the cattlCj and a disease resembling scurvy attacked the in- 
habitants themselves. Stephenson has calculated that 9000 
men, 28,000 horses, 11,000 cattle, 190,000 sheep, died from 
the effects of this one eruption. The most moderate cal- 
culation puts the number of human deaths at upwards of 
1300 ; and of cattle, etc., at about 156,000. 

The whole of this century had proved most fatal to the 
unfortunate people of Iceland. At its commencement 
small-pox destroyed more than 16,000 persons ; nearly 
10,000 more perished by a famine consequent on a succes- 
sion of inclement seasons ; while from time to time the 



VI I.J THE GEYSIRS. 77 

southern coasts were considerably depopulated by the in- 
cursions of English and even Algerine pirates. 

The rest of our day's journey lay through a country 
less interesting than the district we had traversed before 
luncheon. For the most part we kept on along the foot of 
the hills, stopping now and then for a drink of milk at the 
occasional farms perched upon their slopes. Sometimes 
turning up a green and even bushy glen (there are no trees 
in Iceland, the nearest approach to anything of the kind 
being a low dwarf birch, hardly worthy of being called a 
shrub), we would cut across the shoulder of some project- 
ing spur, and obtain a wider prospect of the level land 
upon our right ; or else keeping more down in the flat, we 
had to flounder for half an hour up to the horses' shoulders 
in an Irish bog. After about five hours of this work we 
reached the banks of a broad and rather singular river, 
called the Briiara. Half-way across it was perfectly forda- 
ble ; but exactly in the middle was a deep cleft, into which 
the waters from either side spilt themselves, and then in a 
collected volume roared over a precipice a little lower 
down. Across this cleft some wooden planks were thrown, 
giving the traveller an opportunity of boasting that he had 
crossed a river on a bridge which itself was under water. 
By this time we had all begun to be very tired, and very 
hungry; — it was ii o'clock P.M. We had been twelve or 
thirteen hours on horseback, not to mention occasional 
half-hours of pretty severe walking after the ptarmigan and 
plover. Many were the questions we addressed to Sigurdr 
on the distance yet remaining, and many the conjectures 
we hazarded as to whether the cook would have arrived in 
time to get dinner ready for us. At last, after another two 
hours' weary jogging, we descried, straight in front, a low 
steep brown rugged hill, standing entirely detached from 
the range at the foot of which we had been riding ; and in 



78 



LETTERS FROM HIGH LATITUDES. 



[VII. 



a few minutes more, wheeling round its outer end, we 
found ourselves in the presence of the steaming Geysirs. 

I do not know that I can give you a better notion of the 
appearance of the place than by saying that it looked as if 
— for about a quarter of a mile — the ground had been 
honey-combed by disease into numerous sores and orifices ; 
not a blade of grass grew on its hot, inflamed surface, 
which consisted of unwholesome-looking red livid clay, or 
crumpled shreds or shards of slough-like incrustations. 
Naturally enough, our first impulse on dismounting was to 
scamper off at once to the Great Geysir. As it lay at the 
furthest end of the congeries of hot springs, in order to 
reach it we had to run the gauntlet of all the pools of boil- 
ing water and scalding quagmires of soft clay that inter- 
vened, and consequently arrived on the spot with our an- 
kles nicely poulticed. But the occasion justified our eager- 
ness. A smooth, silicious basin, seventy-two feet in diam- 
eter and four feet deep, with a hole at the bottom as in a 
washing-basin on board a steamer, stood before us brimful 
of water just upon the simmer ; while up into the air above 




A. Basin. B. Funnel, 

our heads rose a great column of vapor, looking as if it 
was going to turn into the Fisherman's Genie. The ground 
about the brim was composed of layers of incrustated sili- 
ca, like the outside of an oyster, sloping gently down on 
all sides from the edge of the basin. 



VII.] THE GEYSIRS. 79 

Having satisfied our curiosity with this cursory inspec- 
tion of what we had come so far to see, hunger compelled 
us to look about with great anxiety for the cook ; and you 
may fancy our delight at seeing that functionary in the 
very act of dishing up dinner on a neighboring hillock. 
Sent forward at an early hour, under the chaperonage of a 
guide, he had arrived about two hours before us, and seiz- 
ing with a general's eye the key of the position, at once 
turned an idle, babbling little Geysir into a camp-kettle, 
dug a bake-house in the hot soft clay, and improvising a 
kitchen-range at a neighboring vent, had made himself 
completely master of the situation. It was about one 
o'clock in the morning when we sat down to dinner, and 
as light as day. 

As the baggage-train with our tents and beds had not 
yet arrived, we fully appreciated our luck in being treated 
to so dry a night ; and having eaten everything we could 
lay hands on, were sat quietly down to chess, and coffee 
brewed in Geysir water j when suddenly it seemed as if be- 
neath our very feet a quantity of subterraneous cannon 
were going off ; the whole earth shook, and Sigurdr, start- 
ing to his feet, upset the chess-board (I was just beginning 
to get the best of the game)j^and flung off full speed towards 
the great basin. By the time we reached its brim, however, 
the noise had ceased, and all we could see was a slight 
movement in the centre, as if an angel had passed by and 
troubled the water. Irritated at this false alarm, we deter- 
mined to revenge ourselves by going and tormenting the 
Strokr. Strokr — or the churn — you must know, is an un- 
fortunate Geysir, with so little command over his temper 
and his stomach, that you can get a rise out of him when- 
ever you like. All that is necessary is to collect a quantity 
of sods, and throw them down his funnel. As he has no 
basin to protect him from these liberties, you can approach 
to the very edge of the pipe, about five feet in diameter. 



8o LETTERS FROM HIGH LA TITUDES. [VII. 

and look down at the boiling water which is perpetually 
seething at the bottom. In a few minutes the dose of turf 
you have just administered begins to disagree with him ; 
he works himself up into an awful passion — tormented by 
the qualms of incipient sickness, he groans and hisses, and 
boils up, and spits at you with malicious vehemence, until 
at last, with a roar of mingled pain and rage, he throws up 
into the air a column of water forty feet high, which car- 
ries with it all the sods that have been chucked in, and 
scatters them scalded and half-digested at your feet. So 
irritated has the poor thing's stomach become by the dis- 
cipline it has undergone, that even long after all the foreign 
matter has been thrown off, it goes on retching and sputter- 
ing, until at last nature is exhausted, when, sobbing and 
sighing to itself, it sinks back into the bottom of its den. 

Put into high spirits by the success of this performance, 
we turned away to examine the remaining spring. I do not 
know, however, that any of the rest are worthy of particular 
mention. They all resemble in character the two I have 
described, the only difference being that they are infinitely 
smaller, and of much less power and importance. One other 
remarkable formation in the neighbourhood must not be 
passed unnoticed. Imagine a large irregular opening in 
tlie surface of the soft white clay, filled to the very brim 
with scalding water, perfectly still, and of as bright a blue 
as that of the Grotto Azzuro at Capri, through whose trans- 
parent depths you can see down into the mouth of a vast 
subaqueous cavern, which runs, Heaven knows how far, in 
a horizontal direction beneath your feet. Its walls and 
varied cavities . really looked as if they were built of the 
purest lapis lazuli — and so thin seemed the crust that roofed 
it in, we almost fancied it might breakthrough, and tumble 
us all into the fearful beautiful bath. 

Having by this time taken a pretty good look at the 
principal features of our new domain, I wrapped myself up 



VII.] THE GEYSIRS. 8i 

in a cloak and went to sleep ; leaving orders that I should 
not be called until after the tent had arrived, and our beds 
were ready. Sigurdr followed my example, but the Doctor 
went out shooting. 

As our principal object in coming so far was to see an 
eruption of the Great Geysir, it was of course necessary we 
should wait his pleasure ; En fact, our movements entirely 
depended upon his. For the next two or three days, there- 
fore, like pilgrims round some ancient shrine, we patiently 
kept watch ; but he scarcely deigned to vouchsafe us the 
slightest manifestations of his latent energies. Two or 
three times the cannonading we had heard immediately 
after our arrival recommenced, — and once an eruption to 
the height of about ten feet occurred ; but so brief was its 
duration, that by the time we were on the spot, although 
the tent was not eighty yards distant, all was over. As 
after every effort of the fountain the water in the basin 
mysteriously ebbs back into the funnel, this performance, 
though unsatisfactory in itself, gave us an opportunity of 
approaching the mouth of the pipe, and looking down into 
its scalded gullet. In an hour afterwards, the basin was 
brimful as ever. 

Tethered down by our curiosity to a particular spot for 
an indefinite period, we had to while away the hours as best 
we could. We played chess, collected specimens, photo- 
graphed the encampment, the guides, the ponies, and one or 
two astonished natives. Every now and then we went out 
shooting over the neighboring flats, and once I ventured 
on a longer expedition among the mountains to our left. 
The views I got were beautiful, — ridge rising beyond ridge 
in eternal silence, like gigantic ocean waves, whose tumult 
has been suddenly frozen into stone ; — but the dread of the 
Geysir going off during my absence made me almost too 
fidgety to enjoy them. The weather luckily remained beau- 
tiful, with the exception of one little spell of rain, which 

6 



82 LETTERS FROM HIGH LA TITUDES. [V 11, 

came to make us all the more grateful for the sunshine, — 
and we fed like princes. Independently of the game, duck, 
plover, ptarmigan, and bittern, with which our own guns 
supplied us, a young lamb was always in the larder, — not to 
mention reindeer tongues, skier, — a kind of sour curds, 
excellent when well made, — milk, cheese, whose taste and 
nature baffles description, bi'^cuit and bread, sent us as a 
free gift by the lady of the neighboring farm. In fact, so 
noble is Icelandic hospitality, that I really believe there was 
nothing within fifty miles round we might not have obtained 
for the asking, had we desired it. As for Fitz, he became 
quite the enfant gate of a neighboring family. 

Having unluckily caught cold, instead of sleeping in the 
tent, he determined to seek shelter under a solid roof-tree, 
and, conducted by our guide Olaf, set off on his pony at 
bed-time in search of a habitation. The next morning he 
reappeared so unusually radiant that I could not help in- 
quiring what good fortune had in the meantime befallen 
him : upon which he gave me such an account of his last 
night's reception at the farm, that I was almost tempted 
to bundle tent and beds down the throat of our irritable 
friend Strokr, and throw myself for the future upon the 
hospitality of the inhabitants. It is true, I had read in Van 
Troil of something of the kind, but until now I never fully 
believed it. The Doctor shall tell his own story. 

" No sooner," said he, '' had I presented myself at the 
door, and made known my errand, than I was immediately 
welcomed by the whole family, and triumphantly inducted 
into the guest quarters : everything the house could produce 
was set before me, and the whole society stood by to see 
that I enjoyed myself. As I had but just dined an addi- 
tional repast was no longer essential to my happiness ; but 
all explanation was useless, and I did my best to give them 
satisfaction. Immediately on rising from the table, the 
young lady of the house — (old Van Troil says it is either 



VII.] THE GEYSIRS, 83 

tlie mother or the daughter of the house, if she be grown 
up, who performs this office) — proposed by signs to conduct 
me to my apartment ; taking in one hand a large plate of 
skier, and in the other a bottle of brandy, she led the way 
through a passage built of turf and stones to the place 
where I was ^o sleep. Having watched her deposit — not 
without misgivings, for I knew it was expected both should 
be disposed of before morning — the skier by my bedside, 
and the brandy bottle under my pillow, I was preparing to 
make her a polite bow, and to wish her a very good night, 
when she advanced towards me, and with a winning grace 
difficult to resist, insisted upon helping me off with my coat 
and then, — ^proceeding to extremities, — with my shoes and 
stockings. At this most critical part of the proceedings, I 
naturally imagined her share of the performance would 
conclude, and that I should at last be restored to that pri- 
vacy which at such seasons is generally considered appro- 
priate. Not a bit of it. Before I knew where I was, I 
found myself sitting in a chair, in my shirt, trouserless, while 
my fair tire-woman was engaged in neatly folding up the 
ravished garments on a neighboring chair. She then in 
the most simple manner in the world, helped me into bed, 
tucked me up, and having said a quantity of pretty things in 
Icelandic, gave me a hearty kiss and departed. If," he 
added, " you see anything remarkable in my appearance, it 
is probably because — 

' This very morn I've felt the sweet surprise 
Of unexpected lips on sealed eyes ; ' 

by which he poetically intimated the pleasing ceremony 
which had awaked him to the duties of the day. I think it 
needless to subjoin that the Doctor's cold did not get better 
as long as we remained in the neighborhood, and that, 
had it not been for the daily increasing fire of his looks, 



84 LETTERS FROM HIGH LA TITUDES. [VII. 

I should have begun to be alarmed at so protracted an 
indisposition. 

We had how been keeping watch for three days over the 
Geysir, in languid expectation of the eruption which was to 
set us free. All the morning of the fourth day I had been 
playing chess with Sigurdr ; Fitzgerald was photographing, 
Wilson was in the act of announcing luncheon, when a cry 
from the guides made us start to our feet, and with one 
common impulse rush towards the basin. The usual sub- 
terranean thunders had already commenced. A violent 
agitation was disturbing the centre of the pool. Suddenly 
a dome of water lifted itself up to the height of eight or ten 
feet, — then.burst, and fell ; immediately after which a shining 
liquid column, or rather a sheaf of columns wreathed in 
robes of vapor, sprung into the air, and in a succession of 
jerking leaps, each higher than the last, flung their silver 
crests against the sky. For a few minutes the fountain held 
its own, then all at once appeared to lose its ascending energy 
The unstable waters faltered, drooped, fell, " like a broken 
purpose," back upon themselves, and were immediately 
sucked down into the recesses of their pipe. 

The spectacle was certainly magnificent ; but no descrip- 
tion can give any idea of its most striking features. The 
enormous wealth of water, its vitality, its hidden power. — • 
the illimitable breadth of sunlit vapor, rolling out in ex- 
haustless profusion. — all combined to make one feel the 
stupendous energy of nature's slightest movements. 

And yet I do not believe the exhibition was so fine as 
some that have been seen : from the first burst upwards to 
the moment the last jet retreated into the pipe, was no more 
than a space of seven or eight minutes, and at no moment 
did the crown of the column reach higher than sixty or 
seventy feet above the surface of the basin. Now, early 
travellers talk of three hundred feet, which must, of course 
be fabulous ; but many trustworthy persons have judged 



VI I. ] THE GEYSIRS. 85 

the eruptions at two hundred feet, while well-authenticated 
accounts — when the elevation of the jet has been actually 
measured — make it to have attained a height of upwards of 
one hundred feet. 

With regard to the internal machinery by which these 
waterworks are set in motion, I will only say that the most 
received theory seems to be that which supposes the exist- 
ence of a chamber in the heated earth, almost, but not quite 
filled with water, and communicating with the upper air by 
means of a pipe, whose lower orifice, instead of being in the 
roof, is at the side of the cavern, and below the surface of 
the subterranean pond. The water, kept by the surrounding 
furnaces at boiling point, generates of course a continuous 
supply of steam, for which some vent must be obtained; as 
it cannot escape by the funnel, — the lower mouth of which 
is under water, — it squeezes itself up within the arching roof 
until at last, compressed beyond all endurance, it strains 
against the rock, and pushing down the intervening waters 
with its broad, strong back, forces them below the level of 
the funnel, and dispersing part, and driving part before it, 
rushes forth in triumph to the upper air. The fountains, 
therefore, that we see mounting to the sky during an eruption 
are nothing but the superincumbent mass of waters in the 
pipe driven up in confusion before the steam at the mo- 
ment it obtains its liberation.^ 

I Professor Bunsen has lately announced a chemical theory, which 
I believe has been received with favor by the scientific world. He 
points to the fact that water, after being long subjected to heat, loses 
much of the air contained in it, has the cohesion of its molecules much 
increased, and requires a higher temperature to bring it to boil ; at 
which moment the production of vapor becomes so great, and so in- 
stantaneous, as to cause explosion. The bursting of furnace boilers 
is often attributable to this cause. Now, the water at the bottom of 
the well of the Great Geysir is found to be of constantly increasing 
temperature up to the moment of an eruption, when on one occasion 
it was as high as 261*^ Fahrenheit. Professor Bunsen's idea is that on 



86 



LETTERS FROM HIGH LA TITUDES. 



[VII. 



The accompanying sketch may perhaps help you to 
understand my meaning. 




The last gulp of water had disappeared down the fun- 
nel. We were standing at the bottom of the now empty 
basin^ gazing into each other's faces with joyous astonish- 
ment, when suddenly we perceived a horseman come fran- 
tically galloping round the base of the neighboring hill to- 
wards us. The state of the case was only too evident. He 
had seen the masses of vapor rising round the fountain, 
and guessing "what was up^'^ had strained every nerve to 
arrive in time. As there was no mutual friend present to 
introduce us to each other, — of course under ordinary cir- 
cumstances I should have wrapped myself in that reserve 
which is the birthright of every Briton, and pretended 
never even to have noticed his arrival ; but the sight we 
had just seen had quite upset my nerves, — and I confess, 
with shame, that I so far compromised myself, as to mau- 

reaching some unknown point above that temperature, ebullition takes 
place, vapor is suddenly generated in enormous quantity, and an erup- 
tion of the superior column of water is the consequence. 



VII.] HOSPITABLE PREPARATIONS. 87 

gurate a conversation with the stranger. In extenuation 
of my conduct, I must be allowed to add, that the new- 
comer was not a fellow-countryman, but of the French 
tongue, and of the naval profession. 

Occupying then the door of my tent — by way of van- 
tage ground, as soon as the stranger was come within 
earshot, I lifted up my voice, and cried in a style of Ara- 
bian familiarity, " O thou that ridest so furiously, — weary 
and disappointed one, — turn in, I pray thee, into the tent 
of thy servant, and eat bread, and drinic wine, that thy 
soul maybe comforted." To which he answered and said, 
"Man, — dweller in sulphureous places, — I will not eat 
bread, nor drink wine, neither will I enter into thy tent, 
until I have measured out a resting-place for my Lord^the 
Prince." 

At this interesting moment our acquaintance was inter- 
rupted by the appearance of two other horsemen — the one 
a painter, the other a geologist — attached to the expedition 
of Prince Napoleon. They informed us that His Imperial 
Highness had reached Reykjavik two days after we had 
left, that he had encamped last night at Thingvalla, and 
might be expected here in about four hours : they them- 
selves having come on in advance to prepare for his ar- 
rival. My first care was to order coffee for the tired 
Frenchmen ; and then — feeling that long residence having 
given us a kind of proprietorship in the Geysirs, we were 
bound to do the honors of the place to the approach- 
ing band of travellers, — I summoned the cook and en- 
larging in a long speech on the gravity of the occasion, 
gave orders that he should make a holocaust of all the 
remaining game, and get under way a plum-pudding, 
whose dimensions should do himself and England credit. 
A long table having been erected within the tent, Sigurdr 
started on a plundering expedition to the neighboring 
farm, Fitzgerald undertook the ordering of the feast, 



88 LETTERS FROM HIGH LA TI TUBES. [VII. 

while I rode on my pony across the morass, m hopes 
of being able to shoot a few additional plover. In a couple 
of hours afterwards, just as I was stalking a duck that lay 
innocently basking on the bosom of the river, a cloud of 
horsemen swept round the base of the distant mountain, 
and returning home, I found the encampment I had left so 
deserted — alive and populous with as merry a group of 
Frenchmen as might ever be one's fortune to fall in with. 
Of course they were dressed in every variety of costume, 
long boots, picturesque brigand-looking hats, with here and 
there a sprinkling of Scotch caps from Aberdeen ; but — 
whatever might be the head-dress, underneath you might 
be sure to find a kindly, cheery face. My old friend Count 
Trampe, who had accompanied the expedition, at once pre- 
sented me to the Prince, who was engaged in sounding the 
depth of the pipe of the Great Geysir, — and encouraged by 
the gracious reception which His Imperial Highness ac- 
corded me, I ventured to inform him that " there was a 
poor banquet toward," of which I trusted he — and as many 
of his officers as the table could hold — would condescend 
to partake. After a little hesitation, — caused, I presume, 
by fear of our being put to inconvenience, — he was kind 
enough to signify his acceptance of my proposal, and in a 
few minutes afterwards with a cordial frankness I fully 
appreciated, allowed me to have the satisfaction of receiv- 
ing him as a guest within my tent. 

Although I never had the pleasure of seeing Prince Na- 
poleon before, I should have known him among a thou- 
sand, from his remarkable likeness to his uncle, the first 
Emperor. A stronger resemblance, I conceive, could 
scarcely exist between two persons. The same delicate, 
sharply cut features, thin refined mouth, and firm deter- 
mined jaw. The Prince's frame, however, is built alto- 
gether on a larger scale, and his eyes, instead of being of 



VII.] HOSPITABLE PREPARA TIOMS. 89 

a ccid piercing blue — are soft and brown, with quite a dif 
ferent expression. 

Though of course a little Barmicidal. the dinner went 
off very well, as every dinner must do where such merry 
companions are the convives. We had some difficulty 
about stowing away the legs of a tall philosopher, and to 
each knife three individuals were told off ; but the birds 
were not badly cooked, and the plum-pudding arrived in 
time to convert a questionable success into an undoubted 
triumph. 

On rising from table, each one strolled away in what- 
ever direction his particular taste suggested. The painter 
to sketch ; the geologist to break stones ; the philosopher 
to moralize, I presume, — at least he lighted a cigar, — and 
the rest to superintend the erection of the tents which had 
just arrived. 

In an hour afterwards, sleep — though not altogether 
silence — for loud and strong rose the choral service in- 
toned to Morpheus from every side — reigned supreme over 
the encampment, whose canvas habitations, huddled to- 
gether on the desolated plateau, looked almost Crimean. 
This last notion, I suppose, must have mingled with ray 
dreams, for not long afterwards I found myself in full swing 
towards a Russian battery, that banged and bellowed, and 
cannonaded about my ears in a fashion frightful to hear. 
Apparently I was serving in the French attack, for clear 
and shrill above the tempest rose the cry, " Alerte ! alerte ! 
aux armes, Monseigneur ! aux armes ! " The ground shook, 
volumes of smoke rose before my eyes, and completely hid 
the defences of Sebastopol ; which fact, on reflection, I 
perceived to be the less extraordinary, as I was standing 
in my shirt at the door of a tent in Iceland. The premon- 
itory symptoms of an eruption, which I had taken for a 
Russian cannonading, had awakened the French sleepers, 
— a universal cry was pervading the encampment, — and the 



90 LETTERS FROM HIGH LATITUDES. [VII. 

entire settlement had turned out — chiefly in bare legs — to 
witness the event which the reverberating earth and steam- 
ing water seemed to prognosticate. Old Geysir, however, 
proved less courteous than we had begun to hope, for 
after laboring uneasily in his basin for a few minutes, he 
roused himself on his hind-legs — ^fell — made one more ef- 
fort, — and then giving it up as a bad job, sank back into 
his accustomed inaction, and left the disappointed assem- 
bly to disperse to their respective dormitories. 

The next morning, the whole encampment was stirring 
at an early hour with preparations for departure ; for un- 
satisfactory as it had been, the French considered them- 
selves absolved by the partial performance they had wit- 
nessed from any longer " making antechamber," as they 
said, to so capricious a functionary. Being very anxious 
to have one more trial at photographing Strokr, I ventured 
to suggest that the necessary bolus of sods should be ad- 
ministered to him. In a few minutes two or three cart- 
loads of turf were seething and wallowing within him. In 
the mean time, Fitz seized the opportunity of the Prince 
being at breakfast to do a picture of him seated on a chair, 
with his staff standing around him, and looking the image 
of Napoleon before the battle of Austerlitz. A good twenty 
minutes had now elapsed since the emetic had been given, 
• — no symptoms of any result had as yet appeared, — and 
the French began to get impatient ; inuendoes were haz- 
arded to the disadvantage of Strokr's reputation for con- 
sistency, — inuendoes, which I confess touched me nearly, 
and made me feel like a showman whose dog has misbe- 
haved. At last the whole party rode off \ but the rear 
horseman had not disappeared round the neighboring hill 
before— splash ! bang ! — fifty feet up into the air drove the 
dilatory fountain, with a fury which amply avenged the af- 
front put upon it, and more than vindicated my good opin- 
ion. All our endeavors, however, to photograph the erup« 



VII.] CHANGE. 91 

tion proved abortive. We had already attempted both 
Strokr and the Great Geysir, but in the case of the latter 
the exhibition was always concluded before the plate could 
be got ready ; and although, as far as Strokr is concerned, 
you can tell within a certain period when the performance 
will take place, yet the interval occurring between the dose 
and the explosion varies so capriciously, that unless you 
are content to spend many days upon the spot, it would be 
almost impossible to hit it off exactly. On this last occa- 
sion, — although we did not prepare the plate until a good 
twenty minutes after the turf was thrown in, — the spring 
remained inactive so much longer than is usual that the 
collodion became quite insensitive, and the eruption left 
no impression whatever upon it. 

Of our return journey to Reykjavik I think I have no 
very interesting particulars to give you. During the early 
part of the morning there had been a slight threatening of 
rain ; but by twelve o'clock it had settled down into one 
of those still dark days, which wrap even the most familiar 
landscape in a mantle of mystery. A heavy, low-hung, 
steel-colored pall was stretched almost entirely across the 
heavens, except where along the flat horizon a broad stripe 
of opal atmosphere let the eye wander into space, in search 
of the pearly gateways of Paradise. On the other side 
rose the contorted lava mountains, their bleak heads knock- 
ing against the solid sky and stained of an inky blackness, 
which changed into a still more lurid tint where the local 
reds struggled up through the shadow that lay brooding 
over the desolate scene. If within the domain of nature 
such another region is to be found, it can only be in the 
heart of those awful solitudes which science has unveiled 
to us amid the untrodden fastnesses of the lunar moun- 
tains. An hour before reaching our old camping-ground at 
Thingvalla, as if summoned by enchantment, a dull grey 
mist closed around us, and suddenly confounded in undis- 



92 LETTERS FROM HIGH LATITUDES. [VII. 

tinguishable ruin the glory and the terror of the panorama 
we had traversed ; sky, mountains, horizon, all had disap- 
peared ; and as we strained our eyes from the edge of the 
Rabna Gja across the monotonous grey level at our feet, it 
was almost difficult to believe that there lay the same ma- 
gical plain, the first sight of which had become almost an 
epoch in our lives. 

I had sent on cook, baggage, and guides, some hours 
before we ourselves started, so that on our arrival we found 
a dry, cosy tent, and a warm dinner awaiting us. The 
rapid transformation of the aspect of the country, which I 
had just witnessed, made me quite understand how com- 
pletely the success of an expedition in Iceland must de- 
pend on the weather, and fully accounted for the difference 
I had observed in the amount of enjoyment different trav- 
ellers seemed to have derived from it. It is one thing to 
ride forty miles a day through the most singular scenery in 
the world, when a radiant sun brings out every feature of 
the country into startling distinctness, transmuting the dull 
tormented earth into towers, domes, and pinnacles of 
gleaming metal, — and weaves for every distant summit a 
robe of variegated light, such as the " Delectable Moun- 
tains " must have worn for the rapt gaze of weary " Chris- 
tian ; " — and another to plod over the same forty miles, 
drenched to the skin, seeing nothing but the dim, grey 
roots of hills, that rise you know not how, and you care 
not where, — with no better employment than to look at 
your watch, and wonder when you shall reach your jour- 
ney's end. If, in addition to this, you have to wait, as very 
often must be the case, for many hours after your own ar- 
rival, wet, tired, hungry, until the baggage-train, with the 
tents and food, shall have come up, with no alternative in 
the mean time but to lie shivering inside a grass^roofed 
church, or to share the quarters of some farmer's family, 
whose domestic arrangements resemble in every particular 



VII.] CHANGE. 93 

those which Macaulay describes as prevailing among the 
Scottish Highlanders a hundred years ago ; and, if finally 
■ — after vainly waiting for some days to see an eruption 
which never takes place — you journey back to Reykjavik 
under the same melancholy conditions, — it will not be un- 
natural that, on returning to your native land you should 
proclaim Iceland, with her Geysirs, to be a sham, a delu- 
sion, and a snare ! 

Fortune, however, seemed determined that of these bit- 
ternesses we should not taste ; for the next morning, bright 
and joyous overhead bent the blue unclouded heaven ; 
while the plain lay gleaming at our feet in all the brillian- 
cy of enamel. I was sorely tempted to linger another day 
in the neighborhood ; but we have already spent more 
time upon the Geysirs than I had counted upon, and it 
will not do to remain in Iceland longer than the 15th, or 
Winter will have begun to barricade the passes into his 
Arctic dominions. My plan, on returning to Reykjavik, is 
to send the schooner round to wait for us in a harbor on 
the north coast of the island, while we ourselves strike 
straight across the interior on horseback. 

The scenery, I am told, is magnificent. On the way 
we shall pass many a little nook, shut up among the hills, 
that has been consecrated by some touching old-world 
story ; and the manner of life among the northern inhabit- 
ants is, I believe, more unchanged and characteristic than 
that of any other of the islanders. Moreover, scarcely 
any stranger has ever penetrated to any distance in this 
direction ; and we shall have an opportunity of traversing 
a slice of that tremendous desert — piled up for thirty thou- 
sand square miles in disordered pyramids of ice and lava 
over the centre of the country, and periodically devastated 
by deluges of molten stone and boiling mud, or over- 
whelmed with whirlwinds of intermingled snow and cin- 
ders, — an unfinished corner of the universe, where the ele- 



94 LETTERS FROM HIGH LATITUDES. [VII. 

ments of chaos are still allowed to rage with unbridled 
fury. 

Our last stage from Thingvalla back to Reykjavik was 
got over very quickly, and seemed an infinitely shorter dis- 
tance than when we first performed it. We met a number 
of farmers returning to their homes from a kind of fair that 
is annually held in the little metropolis ; and as I watched 
the long caravan-like line of pack-horses and horsemen^ 
wearily plodding over the stony waste in single file, I 
found it less difficult to believe that these remote islanders 
should be descended from Oriental forefathers. In fact, 
one is constantly reminded of the East in Iceland. From 
the earliest ages the Icelanders have been a people dwell- 
ing in tents. In the time of the ancient Parliament, the 
legislators, during the entire session, lay encamped in 
movable booths around the place of meeting. Their do- 
mestic polity is naturally patriarchal, and the flight of their 
ancestors from Norway was a protest against the antago- 
nistic principle of feudalism. No Arab could be prouder 
of his courser than they are of their little ponies, or rev- 
erence more deeply the sacred rights of hospitality ; while 
the solemn salutation exchanged between two companies 
of travellers, passing each other in the desert — as they in- 
variably call the uninhabited part of the country — would 
not have misbecome the stately courtesy of the most an- 
cient worshippers of the sun. 

Anything more multifarious than the landing of these 
caravans we met returning to the inland districts — cannot 
well be conceived ; deal boards, rope, kegs of brandy, 
sacks of rye or wheaten flour, salt, soap, sugar, snuff, to- 
bacco, coffee ; everything, in fact, which was necessary to 
their domestic consumption during the ensuing winter. In 
exchange for these commodities, which of course they are 
obliged to get from Europe, the Icelanders export raw 
wool, knitted stockings, mittens, cured cod, and fish oil, 



VII.] EA^ TERN HABITS OF THE ICELANDERS. 95 

whale blubber, fox skins, eider-down, feathers, and Ice- 
landic moss. During the last few years the exports of the 
island have amounted to about 1,200,000 lbs. of wool and 
500,000 pairs of stockings and mittens. Although Iceland 
is one-fifth larger than Ireland, its population consists of 
only about 60,000 persons, scattered along the habitable 
ring which runs round between the central desert and the 
sea ; of the whole area of 38,000 square miles it is calcu- 
lated that not more than one-eighth part is occupied^ the 
remaining 33,000 square miles consisting of naked moun- 
tains of ice, or valleys desolated by lava or volcanic ashes. 
Even Reykjavik itself cannot boast of more than 700 or 
800 inhabitants. 

During winter time the men are chiefly employed in 
tending cattle, picking wool, manufacturing ropes, bridles, 
saddles, and building boats. The fishing season com- 
mences in spring j in 1853 there were as many as 3,500 
boats engaged upon the water. As summer advances — ■ 
turf-cutting and hay-making begins ; while the autumn 
months are principally devoted to the repairing of their 
houses, manuring the grass lands, and killing and curing 
of sheep for exportation, as well as for their own use dur- 
ing winter. The woman-kind of a family occupy them- 
selves throughout the year in washing, carding, and spin- 
ning wool, in knitting gloves and stockings, and in weav- 
ing frieze and flannel for their own wear. 

The ordinary food of a well-to-do Icelandic family con- 
sists of dried fish, butter, sour whey kept till fermentation 
takes place, curds and skier — a very peculiar cheese unlike 
any I ever tasted, — a little mutton, and rye bread. As 
might be expected, this meagre fare is not very conducive 
to health ; scurvy, leprosy, elephantiasis, and all cutaneous 
disorders, are very common, while the practice of mothers 
to leave off nursing their children at the end of three 



96 LETTERS FROM HIGH LATITUDES. [VII. 

days, feeding them with cows' milk instead, results in a 
frightful mortality among the babies. 

Land is held either in fee-simple, or let by the Crown 
to tenants on what may almost be considered perpetual 
leases. The rent is calculated partly on the number of 
acres occupied, partly on the head of cattle the farm is fit 
to support, and is paid in kind, either in fish or farm pro 
duce. Tenants in easy circumstances generally employ 
two or three laborers, who — in addition to their board and 
lodging — receive from ten to twelve dollars a year of 
wages. No property can be entailed, and if any one dies 
intestate, what he leaves is distributed among his children 
— in equal shares to the sons, in half shares to the daugh- 
ters. 

The public revenue arising from Crown lands, commer- 
cial charges, and a small tax on the transference of prop- 
erty, amounts to about 3,000/. / the expenditure for educa- 
tion, officers' salaries (the Governor has about 400/. a 
year), ecclesiastical establishments, etc., exceeds 6,000/. a 
year ; so that the island is certainly not a self-supporting 
institution. 

The clergy are paid by tithes ; their stipends are ex- 
ceedingly small, generally not averaging more than six or 
seven pounds sterling per annum ; their chief dependence 
being upon their farms. Like St. Dunstan, they are inva- 
riably excellent blacksmiths. 

As we approached Reykjavik, for the first time during 
the whole journey we began to have some little trouble 
with the relay of ponies in front. Whether it was that they 
were tired, or that they had arrived in a district where they 
had been accustomed to roam at large, I cannot tell ; but 
every ten minutes, during the last six or seven miles, one 
or the other of them kept starting aside into the rocky plain, 
across which the narrow bridle-road was carried, and cost 
us many a weary chase before we could drive them into the 



VI I.] REYKJAVIK. 97 

track again. At last, though not till I had been violently 
hugged, kissed, and nearly pulled off my horse by an en- 
thusiastic and rather tipsy farmer, who mistook me for the 
Prince, we galloped, about five o'clock^ triumphantly into 
the town, without an accident having occurred to man or 
horse during the whole course of the expedition — always 
excepting one tremendous fall sustained by Wilson, It was 
on the evening of the day we left the Geysirs. We were 
all galloping in single file down the lava pathway, when 
suddenly I heard a cry behind me, and then the noise as 
of a descending avalanche. On turning round, behold ! 
both Wilson and his pony lay stretched upon the ground, 
the first some yards in advance of the other. The poor 
fellow evidently thought he was killed ; for he neither spoke 
nor stirred, but lay looking up at me with blank, beady 
eyes as I approached to his assistance. On further in- 
vestigation neither of the sufferers proved to be a bit the 
worse. 

The cook and the rest of the party, did not arrive till 
about midnight ; but I make no doubt that when that able 
and spirited individual did at length reascend the side of 
the schooner, his cheek must have burned with pride at the 
reflection, that during the short period of his absence on 
shore he had added to his other accomplishments that of be- 
coming a most finished cavalier. I do not mean by that to 
imply that he was at all done. Although we had enjoyed our 
trip so much, I was not sorry to find myself on board. The 
descent again', after our gipsy life, into the coquettish little 
cabin, with its books and dear home faces, quite penetra- 
ted me with thatfeelino^ of snuo: content of which I believe 
Englishmen alone are susceptible. 

I have now to relate to you a most painful occurrence 
which has taken place during my absence at the Geysirs ; 
— no less a catastrophe, in fact, than a mutiny among my 
hitherto most exemplary ship's company. I suppose they, 

7 



98 LETTERS FROM HIGH LATITUDES. [VII. 

too, had occasion to bear witness to the proverbial hospi- 
tality of Iceland ; salt junk, and the innocuous cates which 
generally compose ship-board rations, could never have 
produced such an emergency. Suffice it to say, that 
" Dyspepsia and her fatal train " having taken hold of them, 
in a desperate hour they determined on a desperate deed, 
— and rushing aft in a body, demanded of my faithful 
steward, not only access to the penetralia of the absent 
Doctor's cupboard, but that he himself should administer 
to them whatever medicaments he could come by. In vain 
Mr. Grant threw himself across the cabin-door. Remon- 
strance was useless ; my horny-handed lambs were inexora- 
ble — unless he acceded to their demands, they threatened 
to report him when I returned ! The Doctor's sanctuary 
was thrown open, and all its sweets — if such they may be 
called — were rifled. A huge box of pills, the first that 
came to hand— they happened to be calomel — -was served 
out, share and share alike, with concomitant vials of wrath, 
of rhubarb and senna; audit was not until the last drop of 
castor oil had been carefully licked up that the marauders 
suffered their unwilling accomplice to retire to the fast- 
nesses of his pantry. 

An avenging Nemesis, however, hovered over the viola- 
ted shrine of Esculapius. By the time I returned the 
exigencies of justice had been more than satisfied, and the 
outrage already atoned for. The rebellious hands were 
become most penitent stomachs ; and fresh from the Orien- 
tal associations suggested by our last day's ride, I involun- 
tarily dismissed the disconsolate culprits, with the Asiatic 
form of condonation : " Mashallah, you have made your 
faces white ! Go in peace ! " 

During our expedition to the interior, the harbor of Reyk- 
javik had become populous with new arrivals. First of all 
there was my old friend, the '■'' Reim Hortense^'"' the Empe- 
ror's yacht, a magnificent screw corvette of i,ioo tons. I 



VII.] «Z^ REINE HO R tense: 



99 



had last parted with her three years ago in the Baltic, after 
she had towed me for eighty miles on our way from Bomar- 
'sund to Stockholm. Then there were two English screw 
steamers of about 700 tons each, taken up by the French 
Government as tenders to the yacht ; not to mention a 
Spanish brig, and one or two other foreigners, which, 
together with the frigate, the barque, and the vessels we 
had found here on our first arrival, made the usually de- 
serted bay look quite lively. Until this year no steamers 
had ever cockneyfied its secluded waters. 

This morning, directly after breakfast, I went on board 
the '''■ Reine Hortense'^ to pay my respects to Prince Napo- 
leon ; and H. I. H. has just done me the honor of com- 
ing to inspect the ^^ Foam.'" When I was first presented to 
him at the Geysirs, he asked me what my plans might be ; 
and on my mentioning my resolution of sailing to the 
North, he most kindly proposed that I should come with 
him West to Greenland instead. My anxiety, however, 
to reach, if it were possible, Jan Mayen and Spitzbergen, 
prevented my accepting this most tempting offer ; but in 
the mean time, H. I. H. has, it seems, himself determined 
to come to Jan Mayen, and he is now kind enough to say 
that if I can get ready for a start by six o'clock to-morrow 
morning, the ''^ Reine Hortense^^ shall take me in tov/. To 
profit by this proposal would of course entail the giving 
up my plan of riding across the interior of Iceland, which 
I should be very loth to do j at the same time, the season 
is so far advanced, the mischances of our first start from 
England have thrown us so far behind in our programme, 
that it would seem almost a pity to neglect such an oppor- 
tunity of overrunning the time that has been lost ; and 
after all, these Polar islands, which so few have visited, are 
what I am chiefly bent on seeing. Before I close this letter 
the thing will have been settled one way or another ; for I 
am to have the honor of dining with the Prince this eve- 



I oo LE TTERS FROM HIGH LA TI TUBES. [VII. 

ning, and between this and then I shall have made up my 
mind. After dinner there is to be a ball on board the 
frigate, to which all the rank, fashion, and beauty of Rey- 
kjavik have been invited. 

3 A. M. 

I give up seeing the rest of Iceland, and go North at 
once. It has cost me a struggle to come to this conclusion, 
but on the whole I think it will be better. Ten or fifteen 
days of summer-time become very precious in these lati- 
tudes, and are worth a sacrifice. At this moment we have 
just brought up astern of the " Reiiie Hortense^^ and are get- 
ting our hawsers bent, ready for a start in half an hour's 
time. My next letter, please God, will be dated from Ham- 
merfest. I suppose I shall be about fifteen or twenty days 
getting there, but this will depend on the state of the ice 
about Jan Mayen. If the anchorage is clear, I shall spend 
a few days in examining the island, which by all accounts 
would appear to be most curious. 

I happened first to hear of its existence from a very in- 
telligent whaling Captain I fell in with among the Shet- 
lands four years ago. He was sailing home to Hull, after 
fishing the Spitzbergen waters, and had sighted the huge 
mountain which forms the northern extremity of Jan May- 
en, on his way south. Luckily, the weather was fine while 
he was passing, and the sketch he made of it at the time 
so filled me with amazement, that I then determined, 
if ever I got the chance, to go and see with my own eyes 
so great a marvel. Imagine a spike of igneous rock (the 
whole island is volcanic), shooting straight up out of the 
sea to the height of 6,870 feet, not broad-based like a pyr- 
amid, nor round-topped like a sugar-loaf, but, needle- 
shaped, pointed like the spire of a church. If only my 
Hull skipper were as good a draughtsman as he seemed to 
be a seaman, we should now be on our way to one of the 



VIl. JAN mayen: loi 

wonderii of the world. Most people here hold out rather 
a doleful prospect, and say that, in the first place, it is 
probable the whole island will be imprisoned within the 
eternal fields of ice, that lie out for upwards of a hundred 
and fifty miles along the eastern coast of Greenland; and 
next, that if even the sea should be clear in its vicinity, 
the fogs up there are so dense and constant that the chan- 
ces are very much against our hitting the land. But the 
fact of the last French man-of-war which sailed in that 
direction never having returned, has made those seas need- 
lessly unpopular at Reykjavik. 

It was during one of these fogs that Captain Fotherby, 
the original discoverer of Jan Mayen, stumbled upon it in 
1614. While sailing southwards in a mist too thick to see 
a ship's length off, he suddenly heard the noise of waters 
breaking on a great shore ; and when the gigantic bases of 
Mount Beerenberg gradually disclosed themselves, he 
thought he had discovered some new continent. Since 
then it has been often sighted by homeward-bound whalers, 
but rarely landed upon. About the year 1633 the Dutch 
Government, wishing to establish a settlement in the actual 
neighborhood of the fishing-grounds, where the blubber 
might be boiled down, and the spoils of each season trans- 
ported home in the smallest bulk, — actually induced seven 
seamen to volunteer remaining the whole winter on the 
island.^ Huts were built for them, and having been fur- 
nished with an ample supply of salt provisions, they were 

I The names of the seven Dutch seamen who attempted to winter 
in J an Mayen's Island were : 

Outgert Jacobson, of Grootenbrook, their commander. 

Adrian Martin Carman, of Schiedam, clerk. 

Thauniss Thaunissen, of Schermehem, cook. 

Dick Peterson, of Veenhuyse. 

Peter Peterson, of Harlem. 

Sebastian Gyse, of Defts-Haven. 

Gerard Beautin, of Bruges. 



1 02 LE TTERS FROM HIGH LA TI TUBES. [VI I . 

left to resolve the problem, as to whether or no human 
beings could support the severities of the climate. Stand- 
ing on the shore, these seven men saw their comrades' part- 
ing sails smk down beneath the sun, — then watched the 
sun sink, as had sunk the sails ; — but extracts from their 
own simple narrative are the most touching record I can 
give you of their fate : — 

"The 26th of August, our fleet set sail for Holland 
with a strong north-east wind, and a hollow sea, which 
continued all that night. The 28th, the wind the same ; 
it began to snow very hard ; we then shared half a pound 
of tobacco betwixt us, which was to be our allowance for 
a week. Towards evening we went about together, to see 
whether we could discover anything worth our observation ; 
but met with nothing." And so on for many a weary day 
of sleet and storm. 

On the 8th of September they "were frightened by a 
noise of something falling to the ground," — probably some 
volcanic disturbance. A month later, it becomes so cold 
that their linen, after a moment's exposure to the air be- 
com.es frozen like a board.^ Huge fleets of ice beleague- 
red the island, the sun disappears, and they spend most of 
their time in " rehearsing to one another the adventures 
that had befallen them both by sea and land." On the 
1 2th of December they kill a bear, having already begun 
to feel the effects of a salt diet. At last comes New 
Year's Day, 1636. "After having wished each other a 

I The climate, however, does not appear to have been then so in- 
clement in these latitudes as it has since become. A similar deterior- 
ation in the temperature, both of Spitzbergen and Greenland, has also 
been observed. In Iceland we have undoubted evidence of corn hav- 
ing been formerly grown, as well as of the existence of timber of con- 
siderable size, though now it can scarcely produce a cabbage, or a 
stunted shrub of birch. M. Babinet, of the French Institute, goes a 
little too far when he says, in the Journal des D€bats of the 30th De- 
cember, 1856, that for many years Jan Mayen has been inaccessible. 



VII.] THE COLONISTS OF JAN MAYEN: 103 

happy new year, and success in our enterprise, we went to 
prayers, to disburthen our hearts before God." On the 
25 th of February (the very day on whicli Wallenstein was 
murdered) the sun reappeared. By the 22d of March 
scurvy had already declared itself : " For want of refresh- 
ments we began to be very heartless, and so afflicted that 
our legs are scarce able to bear us." On the 3d of April, 
" there being no more than two of us in. health, we killed 
for them the only two pullets we had left ; and they fed 
pretty heartily upon them, in hopes it might prove a means 
to recover part of their strength. We were sorry we had 
not a dozen more for their sake." On Easter Day, Adrian 
Carman, of Schiedam, their clerk, dies. " The Lord have 
mercy upon his soul, and upon us all, we being very sick." 
During the next few days they seem all to have got rapidly 
worse ; one only is strong enough to move about. He has 
learnt writing from his comrades since coming to the island ; 
and it is he who concludes the melancholy story. " The 
23d ("April), the wind blew from the same corner, with 
small rain. We were by this time reduced to a very de- 
plorable state, there being none of them all, except my- 
self, that were able to help themselves, much less one an- 
other, so that the whole burden lay upon my shoulders, — 
and I perform my duty as well as I am able, as long as 
God pleases to give me strength. I am just now a-going 
to help our commander out of his cabin, at his request, 
because he imagined by this change to ease his pain, he 
then struggling with death." For seven days this gallant 
fellow goes on " striving to do his duty ; " that is to say, 
making entries in the journal as to the state of the weather, 
that being the principal object their employers had in view 
when they left them on the island ; but on the 30th of 
April his strength too gave way, and his failing hand could 
do no more than trace an incompleted sentence on the 
page. 



1 04 LE TTERS FR OM HIGH LA TI TUBES. [VI I. 

Meanwhile succor and reward are on their way toward 
the forlorn garrison. On the 4th of June, up again above 
the horizon rise the sails of the Zealand fleet ; but no glad 
faces came forth to greet the boats as they pull towards 
the shore ; and when their comrades search for those they 
had hoped to find alive and well, — lo ! each lies dead in 
his own hut, — one with an open Prayer-book by his side ; 
another with his hand stretched out towards the ointment 
he had used for his stiffened joints ; and the last survivor, 
with the unfinished journal still lying by his side. 

The most recent recorded landing on the island was 
effected twenty-two years ago, by the brave and pious Cap- 
tain, now Dr. Scoresby,^ on his return from a whaling 
cruise. He had seen the mountain of Beerenberg one 
hundred miles off, and, on approaching, found the coast 
quite clear of ice. According to his survey and observa- 
tions, Jan Mayen is about sixteen miles long, by four wide ; 
but 1 hope soon, on my own authority, to be able to tell 
you more about it. 

Certainly, this our last evening spent in Iceland will 
not have been the least joyous of our stay. The dinner 
on board the " Reine Hortense " was very pleasant. I re- 
newed acquaintance with some of ray old Baltic friends, 
and was presented to two or three of the Prince's staff 
who did not accompany the expedition to the Geysirs ; 
among others, to the Due d'Abrantes, Marshal Junot's 
son. On sitting down to table, I found myself betw^een 
H.I.H. and Monsieur de Saulcy, member of the French 
Institute, who made that famous expedition to the Dead 
Sea, and is one of the gayest, pleasantest persons I have 
ever met. Of course there was a great deal of laughing 
and talking, as well as much speculation with regard to the 
costume of the Icelandic ladies we were to see at the ball. 

I I regret to be obliged to subjoin that Pr. Scoresby has died since 
the above was written. 



VII] 



ICELANDIC LADIES. 



It appears that the dove-cots of Reykjavik have been a 
good deal fluttered by an announcement emanating from 
the gallant Captain of the " Artemise " that his fair guests 
would be expected to come in low dresses ; for it would 
seem that the practice of showing their ivory shoulders is, 
as yet, an idea as shocking to the pretty ladies of this 
country as waltzes was to our grandmothers. Nay, there 




AN ICELANDIC LADY. 



was not even to be found a native milliner equal to the 
task of marking out that mysterious line which divides the 
prudish from the improper ; so that the Collet-monte fac- 
tion have been in despair. As it turned out, their anxiety 
on this head was unnecessary ; for we found, on entering 
the ball-room, that, with the natural refinement which char- 



io6 LETTERS FROM HIGH LATITUDES. [VII. 

acterizes this noble people, our bright- eyed partners, as if 
by inspiration, had hit off the exact sweep from shoulder 
to shoulder, at which — after those many oscillations, up 
and down, which the female corsage has undergone since 
the time of the first Director — good taste has finally ar- 
rested it. 

I happened to be particularly interested in the above 
important question ; for up to that moment I had always 
been haunted by a horrid paragraph I had met with some- 
where in an Icelandic book of travels, to the effect that it 
was the practice of Icelandic women, from early childhood, 
to flatten down their bosoms as much as possible. This 
fact, for the honor of the island, I am now in a position to 
deny; and I here declare that, as far as I had the indis- 
cretion to observe, those maligned ladies appeared to me 
as buxom in form as any rosy English girl I have ever 
seen. 

It was nearly nine o'clock before we adjourned from 
the '"'■ Reine Hortensel' to the ball. Already, for some time 
past, boats full of gay dresses had been passing under the 
corvette's stern on their M'ay to the " Artemise^^^ lox^king 
like flower-beds that had put to sea, — though they certainly 
could no longer be called 2. parterre ; — and by the time we 
ourselves mounted her lofty sides, a mingled stream of 
music, light, and silver laughter, was pouring out of every 
port-hole. The ball-room was very prettily arranged. The 
upper deck had been closed in with a lofty roof of canvas, 
from which hung suspended glittering lustres, formed by bay- 
onets with their points collected into an inverted pyramid, 
and the butt-ends serving as sockets for the tapers. Every 
wall was gay with flags, — the frigate's frowning armament 
all hid or turned to ladies uses : 82 pounders became sofas 
— boarding-pikes, balustrades — pistols, candlesticks — the 
brass carronades set on end, pillarwise, their brawling 
mouths stopped with nosegays ; while portraits of the Em 



VII.] FEARFUL SUGGESTIONS. 107 

peror and the Empress, busts, colo:s draped with Parisian 
cunning, gave to the scene an appearance of festivity that 
looked quite fairy-like in so sombre a region. As for our 
gallant host, I never saw such spirits ; he is a fine old grey- 
headed blow-hard of fifty odd, talking English like a native, 
and combining the frank open-hearted cordiality of a sailor 
with that graceful winning gaiety peculiar to Frenchmen. 
I never saw anything more perfect than the kind, almost 
fatherly, courtesy with which he welcomed each blooming 
bevy of maidens that trooped up his ship's side. About 
two o'clock we had supper on the main deck. I had the 
honor of taking down Miss Thora, of Bessestad ; and 
somehow — this time, I no longer found myself wandering 
back in search of the pale face of the old-world Thora, 
being, I suppose, sufficiently occupied by the soft, gentle 
eyes of the one beside me. With the other young ladies 
I did not make much acquaintance, as I experienced 
a difficulty in finding befitting remarks on the occasion 
of being presented to them. Once or twice, indeed, I 
hazarded, through their fathers, some little compliment- 
ary observations in Latin ; but I cannot say that I found 
that language lend itself readily to the gallantries of the 
ball-room. After supper dancing recommenced, and the 
hilarity of the evening reached its highest pitch when half 
a dozen sailors, dressed in turbans made of flags (one of 
them a lady with the face of the tragic muse), came for- 
ward and danced the cancan, with a gravity and decorum 
that would have greatly edified what Gavarni calls '^ iapu- 
deiirmunicipale'^ 

At 3 o'clock A. M. I returned on board the schooner, 
and we are all now very busy in making final preparations 
for departure. Fitz is rearranging his apothecary's shop. 
Sigurdr is writing letters. The last strains of music have 
ceased on board the ^^ Artemise ; " the sun is already high in 
the heavens ; the flower beds are returning on shore, — a 



io8 LETTERS FROM HIGH LATITUDES. [VII. 

little draggled perhaps, as if just pelted by a thunder- 
storm ; the " Reine Horteiise " his got her steam up, and 
the real, serious part of our voyage is about to begin. 

I feel that my description has not half done justice to 
the wonders of this interesting island ; but 1 can refer you 
to your friend Sir Henry Holland for further details ; he 
paid a visit to Iceland in 1810, with Sir G. Mackenzie, and 
made himself thoroughly acquainted with its historical and 
scientific associations. 



CONCLUDING ACT. 

Scene. R. V. S. " Foam " ; aster7t of the " Reine Hortense.''^ 

DRAMATIS PERSON.^. 

Voice of French Captain, Commanding " R. H." 

Lord D. 

Doctor. 

Wilson. 

Voice of French Captain. — " Nous partons." 
Lord D .— " All ready, Sir ! " 

Wilson to Doctor (sotto voce^. — " Sir ! " 

Doctor.—'' Eh ? " 

Wilson. — " Do you know, Sir ? " 
Z>^^/^r.— "What?" 

Wilson. — " Oh, nothing. Sir ; — only we're going to the 
hicy regions, Sir, ain't we ? Well, I've just seen that ere 
brig as is come from there. Sir, and they say there's a pre- 
cious lot of ice this year ! {Pause?) Do you know, Sir, the 
skipper showed me the bows of his vessel. Sir ? She's 
got seven feet of solid timber in her for'ard : we've only 
two inches. Sir ! " {Dives below.) 

Voice of French Captain {with a slight accent). — "Are 
you ready ? " 

Lord D -. — " Ay, ay, Sir ! Up anchor 1 " 



LETTER VIII. 



START FROM REYKJAVIK SNAEFELL THE LADY OF f RODA 

^A BERSERK TRAGEDY THE CHAMPION OF BREIDA^'IK — ■ 

ONUNDER FIORD THE LAST NIGHT CROSSING THE ARC- 
TIC CIRCLE FETE ON BOARD THE " REINE HORTENSE " 

LE PERE ARCTIQUE WE FALL IN WITH THE ICE — THE 

" SAXON " DISAPPEARS — MIST — A PARTING IN A LONELY 
SPOT ^JAN MAYEN — MOUNT BEERENBERG AN UNPLEAS- 
ANT POSITION SHIFT OF WIND AND EXTRICATION " TO 

NORROWAY OVER THE FAEM " A NASTY COAST — HAM- 

MERFEST. 

Hammerfest, July. 

Back in Europe again, — within reach of posts ! The 
glad sun shining, the soft winds blowing, and roses on the 
cabin table, — as if 'the region of fog and ice we have just 
fled forth from were indeed the dream-land these summer 
sights would make it seem. I cannot tell you how gay 
and joyous it all appears to us, fresh from a climate that 
would not have been unworthy of Dante's Inferno. And 
yet — had it been twice as bad, what we have seen would 
have more than repaid us, though it has been no child's 
play to get to see it. 

But I must begin where I left off in my last letter, — 
just, I think, as we were getting under way, to be towed 
by the " Reine Hortense " out of Reykjavik Harbor. Hav- 
ing been up all night, — as soon as we were well clear of 
the land, and that it was evident the towing business was 



no 



LETTERS FROM HIGH LA TI TUBES. 



[VIII. 



doing well — I turned in for a few hours. When I came 
on deck again we had crossed the Faxe Fiord on our way 
north, and were sweeping round the base of Snaefell — an 
extinct volcano which rises from the sea in an icy cone to 
the height of 5,000 feet, and grimly looks across to Green- 
land. The day was beautiful ; the mountain's summit 
beamed down upon us in unclouded splendor, and every- 
thing seemed to promise an uninterrupted view of the west 




REMAINS OF BASALTIC DYKES. 



coast of Iceland, along whose rugged cliffs few mariners 
have ever sailed. Indeed, until within these last few years, 
the passage, I believe, was altogether impracticable, in 
consequence of the continuous fields of ice which used to 
drift down the narrow channel between the frozen conti- 
nent and the northern extremity of the island. Lately, 
some great change seems to have taken place in the lie of 
the Greenland ice ; and during the cummer-time you can 



VIII.] THE TUMULTUOUS ONE. Ill 

pass through, though late in the year a solid belt binds the 
two shores together. 

But in a historical and scientific point of view, the 
whole country lying about the basanite roots of Snaefell is 
most interesting. At the feet of its southern slopes are to 
be seen wonderful ranges of columnar basalt, prismatic 
caverns, ancient craters, and specimens of almost every 
formation that can result from the agency of subterranean 
fires ; while each glen, and bay, and headland, in the 
neighborhood, teems with traditionary lore. On the north- 
western side of the mountain stretches the famous Eyrbig- 
gja district, the most classic ground in Iceland, with the 
towns, or rather farmsteads, of Froda, Helgafell, and 
Biarnarhaf. 

This last place was the scene of one of the most curious 
and characteristic Sagas to be found in the whole catalogue 
of Icelandic chronicles. 

In the da3^s when the same Jarl Hakon I have already 
mentioned lorded it over Norway, an Icelander of the 
name of Vermund, who had come to pay his court to the 
lord of Lade, took a violent wish to engage in his own ser- 
vice a couple of gigantic Berserks,^ named Halli and Leik- 
ner, whom the Jarl had retained about his person — fancying 
that two champions of such great strength and prowess would 
much add to his consequence on returning home. In vain 
the Jarl warned him that personages of that description were 
wont to give trouble and become unruly, — -nothing would 
serve but he must needs carry them away with him ; nay, if 
they would but come, they might ask as wages any boon 

I Berserk, /. e., bare sack. The berserks seem to have been a de- 
scription of athletes who were in the habit of stimulating their nervous 
energies by the use of some intoxicating drug, which rendered them 
capable of feats of extraordinary strength and daring. The Berserker 
gang must have been something very like the Malay custom of running 
amuck. Their moments of excitement were followed by periods of 
great exhaustion. 



T 1 2 LETTERS FROM HIGH LA TITUDES. [VIII. 

which might be in his power to grant. The bargain accord 
ingly was made ; but on arriving in Iceland, the first thing 
Ilalli took into liis head to require was a wife, who should 
be rich, nobly born, and beautiful. As such a request was 
difficult to comply with, Vermund, who was noted for being 
a man of gentle disposition, determined to turn his trouble- 
some retainers over to his brother, Arngrim Styr. /. e.^ the 
Stirring or Tumultuous One, — as being a likelier man than 
himself to know how to keep them in order. 

Arngrim happened to have a beautiful daughter, named 
Asdisa, with whom the inflammable Berserk of course fell 
in love. Not daring openly to refuse him, Arngrim told his 
would-be son-in-law, that before complying with his suit, he 
must consult his friends, and posted off to Helgafell, where 
dwelt the Pagan Pontiff Snorre. The result of this confer- 
ence was an agreement on the part of Styr to give his 
daughter to the Berserk, provided he and his brother would 
cut a road through the lava rocks of Biarnarhaf. Halli and 
Leikner immediately set about executing this prodigious 
task j while the scornful Asdisa, arrayed in her most splendid 
attire, came sweeping past in silence, as if to mock their toil. 
The poetical reproaches addressed to the young lady on this 
occasion by her sturdy admirer and his mate are still extant. 
In the mean time, the other servants of the crafty Arngrim 
had constructed a subterranean bath, so contrived that at a 
moment's notice it could be flooded with boiling water. 
Their task at last concluded, the two Berserks returned 
home to claim their reward ; but Arngrim Styr, as if in 
the exuberance of his affection, proposed that they should 
first refresh themselves in the new bath. No sooner had 
they descended into it, that Arngrim shut down the trap- 
door, and having ordered a newly-stripped bullock's hide 
to be stretched before the entrance, gave the signal for the 
boiling water to be turned on. Fearful were the struggles 
of the scalded giants ; Halli, indeed, succeeded in bursting 



VIII.] TffUREBS LOVER. 113 

up the door ; but his foot slipped on the bloody bull's hide 
and Arngrim stabbed him to the heart. His brother was 
then easily forced back into the seething water. 

The effusion composed by the Tumultuous One on the 
occasion of this exploit is also extant, and does not yield in 
poetical merit to those which I have already mentioned as 
having emanated from his victims. 

As soon as the Pontiff Snorre heard of the result of Arn- 
grim Styr's stratagem, he came over and married the Lady 
Asdisa. Traces of the road made by the unhappy cham- 
pions can yet be detected at Biarnarhaf, and tradition still 
identifies the grave of the Berserks. 

Connected with this same Pontiff Snorre is another of 
those mysterious notices of a great land in the western ocean 
which we find in the ancient chronicles, so interwoven with 
narrative we know to be true, as to make it impossible not 
to attach a certain amount of credit to them. This particu- 
lar story is the more interesting as its denouement^ abruptly 
left in the blankest mystery by one Saga, is incidentally re- 
vealed to us in the course of another, relating to events 
wdth which the first had no connection.^ 

It seems that Snorre had a beautiful sister named Thured 
of Froda, with whom a certain gallant gentleman — called 
Bjorn, the son of Astrand — fell head and ears in love. Un- 
fortunately, a rich rival appears in the field ; and though 
she had given her heart to Bjorn, Snorre — who, we have 
already seen, was a prudent man — insisted upon her giving 
her hand to his rival. Disgusted by such treatment, Bjorn 
sails away to the coasts of the Baltic, and joins a famous 
company of sea-rovers, called the Jomsburg Vikings. In 
this- worthy society he so distinguishes himself by his valor 
and daring that he obtains the title of the Champion of 

I From internal evidence it is certain that the chronicle which con- 
tains these Sagas must have been written about the beginning of the 
thirteenth century. 

8 



114 LE TTERS FROM HIGH LA TITUDES. [VII I. 

Breidavik. After many doughty deeds, done by sea and 
land, he at last returns, loaded with wealth and honors, to 
his native country. 

In the summer-time of the year 999, soon after his arrival 
was held a great fair at Froda, whither all the merchants, 
" clad in colored garments," congregated from the adjacent 
country. Thither came also Bjorn's old love, the Lady of 
Froda ; " and Bjorn went up and spoke to her, and it was 
thought likely their talk would last long since they for such a 
length of time not seen each other." But to this renewal 
of old acquaintance both the lady's husband and her 
brother very much objected ; and " it seemed to Snorre 
that it would be a good plan to kill Bjorn." So, about the 
time of hay-making, off he rides, with some retainers, to 
his victim's home, having fully instructed one of them how 
to deal the first blow. Bjorn was in the home-field (tun), 
mending his sledge, when the cavalcade appeared in sight ; 
and, guessing what motive had inspired the visit, went 
straight up to Snorre, who rode in front, " in a blue cloak,'* 
and held the knife with which he had been working in such 
a position as to be able to stab the Pontiff to the heart, 
should his followers attempt to lift their hands against him- 
self. Comprehending the position of affairs, Snorre's 
friends kept quiet. " Bjorn then asked the news." Snorre 
confesses that he had intended to kill him ; but adds, 
" Thou tookest such a lucky grip of me at our meeting, 
that thou must have peace this time, however it may have 
been determined before." The conversation is concluded 
by an agreement on the part of Bjorn to leave the country 
as he feels it impossible to abstain from paying visits 
to Thured as long as he remains in the neighborhood. 
Having manned a ship, Bjorn put to sea in the summer-time. 
" When they sailed away, a north-east wind was blowing, 
which wind lasted long during that summer ; but of this 
ship was nothing heard since this long time." And so we 



VII I.] CELTIC TRACES. 115 

conclude it is all over with the poor Champion of Breidavik ! 
Not a bit of it. He turns up, thirty years afterwards, safe 
and sound, in the uttermost parts of the earth. 

In the year 1029, a certain Icelander, named Gudlief, 
undertakes a voyage to Limerick, in Ireland. On his return 
home, he is driven out of his course by north-east winds. 
Heaven knows where. After drifting for many days to the 
west-ward, he at last falls in with land. On approaching 
the beach, a great crowd of people came down to meet the 
strangers, apparently with no friendly intentions. Shortly 
afterwards, a tall and venerable chieftain makes his appear- 
ance and, to Gudlief's great astonishment, addresses him 
in Icelandic. Having entertained the weary mariners very 
honorably, and supplied them with provisions, the old man 
bids them speed back to Iceland, as it would be unsafe for 
them to remain where they were. His own name he refused 
to tell ; but having learnt that Gudlief comes from the 
neighborhood of Snaefell, he puts into his hands a sword 
and a ring. The ring is to be given to Thured of Froda ; 
the sword to her son Kjartan. When Gudlief asks by whom 
he is to say the gifts are sent, the ancient chieftain an- 
swers, " Say they come from one who was a better friend 
of the Lady of Froda than of her brother Snorre of Helga- 
fell." Wherefore it is conjectured that this man was Bjorn 
the son of Astrand, Champion of Breidavik. 

After this, Madam, I hope I shall never hear you depre- 
ciate the constancy of men. Thured had better have mar- 
ried Bjorn after all ! 

I forgot to mention that when Gudlief landed on the 
strange coast, it seemed to him that the inhabitants spoke 
Irish. Now, there are many antiquaries inclined to believe 
in the former existence of an Irish colony to the southw^ard 
of the Vinland of the Northmen. Scattered through the 
Sagas are several notices of a distant country in the West, 
which is called Ireland ed Mekla — Great Ireland, or the 



1 16 LETTERS FROM HIGH LA TITUDES. [VIII. 

White Man's land. When Pizarro penetrated into the 
heart of Mexico, a tradition already existed of the previous 
arrival of white men from the East. Among the Shaw- 
nasee Indians a story is still preserved of Florida having 
been once inhabited by white men, who used iron instru- 
ments. In 1658, Sir Erland the Priest had in his posses- 
sion a chart, even then thought ancient, of " The Land of 
the White Men, or Hibernia Major, situated opposite Vin- 
land the Good ; " and Gaelic philologists pretend to trace 
a remarkable affinity between many of the American-Indian 
dialects and the ancient Celtic. 

But to return to the *' Foa?n'' After passing the cape, 
away we went across the spacious Brieda Fiord, at the rate 
of nine or ten knots an hour, reeling and bounding at the 
heels of the steamer, which seemed scarcely to feel how 
uneven was the surface across which we were speeding. 
Down dropped Snaefell beneath the sea, and dim before us, 
clad in evening haze, rose the shadowy steeps of Bardes- 
trand. The north-west division of Iceland consists of one 
huge peninsula, spread out upon the sea like a human hand, 
the fingers just reaching over the Arctic circle ; while up 
between them run the gloomy fiords, sometimes to the length 
of twenty, thirty, and even forty miles. Anything more 
grand and mysterious than the appearance of their solemn 
portals, as we passed across from bluff to bluff, it is impos- 
sible to conceive. Each might have served as a separate 
entrance to some poet's hell — so drear and fatal seemed the 
vista one's eye just caught receding between the endless 
ranks of precipice and pyramid. 

There is something, moreover, particularly mystical in 
the effect of the grey, dreamy atmosphere of an arctic night 
through whose uncertain medium mountain and headland 
loom as impalpable as the frontiers of a demon world ; and 
as I kept gazing at the glimmering peaks, and monstrous 
crags, and shattered stratifications, heaped up along the coast 



VIII.] WALHALLA. 



"7 



in Cyclopean disorder, I understood how natural it was that 
the Scandinavian mythology, of whose mysteries the Ice- 
landers were ever the natural guardians and interpreters, 
should have assumed that broad, massive simplicity which 
is its most beautiful characteristic. Amid the rugged 
features of such a country the refinements of Paganism 
. would have been dwarfed into insignificance. How out of 
place would seem a Jove with his beard in ringlets — a trim 
AjDoUo — a sleek Bacchus — an ambrosial Venus — a slim 
Diana, and all their attendant groups of Oreads and Cupids 
— amid the ocean mists, and icebound torrents,' the flame- 
scarred mountains, and four months' night — of a land which 
the opposing forces of heat and cold have selected for a 
battle-field ! 

The undeveloped reasoning faculty is prone to attach an 
undue value and meaning to the forms of things, and the 
infancy of a nation's mind is always more ready to worship 
the 7nanifestations of a Power, than to look beyond them 
for a cause. Was it not natural then that these northerners, 
dwelling in daily communion with this grand Nature, should 
fancy they could perceive a mysterious and independent 
energy in her operations ; and at last come to confound the 
moral contest man feels within him, with the physical strife 
he finds around him ; to see in the returning sun — fostering 
into renewed existence the winter-stifled world — even more 
than a type of that spiritual consciousness which alone can 
make the dead heart stir ; to discover even more than an 
analogy between the reign of cold, darkness, and desolation 
and the still blanker ruin of a sin perverted soul t But in 
that iron clime, amid such awful associations, the conflict 
going on was too terrible — the contending powers too visi- 
bly in presence of each other, for the practical, conscien- 
tious Norse mind to be content with the puny godships of a 
Roman Olympus, Nectar, Sensuality, and Inextinguishable 
Laughter were elements of felicity too mean for the nobler 



li8 LETTERS FROM HIGH LATITUDES. [VIII. 

atmosphere of their Walhalla ; and to those active temper- 
aments and healthy minds, — invigorated and solemnized 
by the massive mould of the scenery around them, — 
Strength, Courage, Endurance, and above all Self-sacrifice 
naturally seemed more essential attributes of divinity than 
mere elegance and beauty. And we must remember that 
whilst the vigorous imagination of the north was delighting 
itself in creating a stately dreamland, where it strove to 
blend, in a grand world-picture — always harmonious, though 
not always consistent — the influences which sustain both 
the physical and moral system of its universe, an under- 
current of sober Gothic common sense induced it — as a 
kind of protest against the too material interpretation of 
the symbolism it had employed — to wind up its religious 
scheme by sweeping into the chaos of oblivion all the glori- 
ous fabric it had evoked, and proclaiming — in the place 
of the transient gods and perishable heaven of its Asgaard 
— that One undivided Deity, at whose approach the pillars 
of Walhalla were to fall, and Odin and his peers to perish, 
with all the subtle machinery of their existence ; while man 
— himself immortal — was summoned to receive at the hands 
of the Eteructi \11-Father the sentenpe that waited upon his 
deeds. It is true this purer system belonged only to the 
early ages. As in the case of every false religion, the sym- 
bolism of the Scandinavian mythology lost with each suc- 
ceeding generation something of its transparency, and at 
last degenerated into a gross superstition. But traces still 
remained, even down to the times of Christian ascendency, 
of the deep, philosophical spirit in which it had been origi- 
nally conceived ; and through its homely imagery there ran 
a vein of tender humor, such as still characterizes the 
warm-hearted, laughter-loving northern races. Of this mix- 
ture of philosophy and fun, the following story is no bad 
specimen. ^ 

I The story of Thor's journey has been translated from the Edda 
bpth by the Howitts and Mr. Thoroe. 



VIIL] THOR'S JOURNEY TO JOTUNHEIM. T 19 

Once on a time the two GEsir, Thor, the Thunder god, 
and his brother Lopt, attended by a servant, determined to 
^o eastward to Jotunheim, the land of the giants, in search 
of adventures. Crossing over a great water, they came to 
a desolate plain, at whose further end, tossing and waving 
in the wind, rose the tree tops of a great forest. After 
journeying for many hours along its dusty labyrinths, they 
began to be anxious about a resting-place for the night 
" At last, Lopt perceived a very spacious house, on one side 
of which was an entrance, as wide as the house itself ; and 
there they took up their night-quarters. At midnight they 
perceived a great earthquake j the ground reeled under them 
and the house shook. 

" Then up rose Thor and called to his companions. They 
sought about, and found a side building to the right, into 
which they went Thor placed himself at the door, the rest 
went and sat down further in, and were very much afraid. 

" Thor kept his hammer in his hand, ready to defend 
them. Then they heard a terrible noise and roaring. As 
it began to dawn, Thor went out, and saw a man lying in 
the wood not far from them j he was by no means small, 
and he slept and snored loudly. Then Thor understood 
what the noise was which they heard in the night. He 
buckled on his belt of power, by which he increased his 
divine strength. At the same instant the man awoke, and 
rose up. It is said that Thor was so much astonished that 
he did not dare to slay him with his hammer, but inquired 
his name. He called himself Skrymer. ' Thy name,' said 
he, ' I need not ask, for I know that thou art Asar-Thor. 
But what hast thou done with my glove ? ' 

" Skrymer stooped and took up his glove, and Thor 
saw that it was the house in which they had passed the 
night, and that the out-building was the thumb." 

Here follow incidents which do not differ widely from 
certain passages in the history of Jack the Giant Killer. 
Thor makes three several attempts to knock out the easy- 



120 LE TTERS FROM HIGFI LA TITUDES. [VIII. 

going giant's brains during a slumber, in which he is rep- 
resented as " snoring outrageously," — and after each blow 
of the Thunder god's hammer, Skrymer merely wakes up 
— strokes his beard — and complains of feeling some tri- 
fling inconvenience, such as a dropped acorn on his head, 
a fallen leaf, or a little moss shaken from the boughs. 
Finally, he takes leave of them, — points out the way to 
Utgard Loke's palace, advises them not to give themselves* 
airs at his court, — as unbecoming "such little fellows" as 
they were, and disappears in the wood ; " and " — as the 
old chronicler slyly adds — " it is not said whether the CEsir 
wished ever to see him again." 

They then journeyed on till noon ; till they came to a 
vast palace, where a multitude of men, of whom the great- 
er number were immensely large, sat on two benches. 
" After this they advanced into the presence of the king, 
Utgard Loke, and saluted him. He scarcely deigned to 
give a look, and said smiling : ' It is late to inquire after 
true tidings from a great distance ; but is it not Thor that 
I see ? Yet you are really bigger than I imagined. What 
are the exploits that you can perform ? For no one is tol- 
erated amongst us who cannot distinguish himself by some 
art or accomplishment.' 

" ' Then,' said Lopt, ' I understand an art of which T 
am prepared to give proof ; and that is, that no one here 
can dispose of his food as I can.' Then answered Utgard 
Loke : ' Truly this is an art, if thou canst achieve it ; 
which we will now see.' He called from the bench a man 
named Loge to contend with Lopt. They set a trough in 
the middle of the hall, filled with meat. Lopt placed him- 
self at one end and Loge at the other. Both ate the best 
they could, and they met in the middle of the trough. 
Lopt had picked the meat from the bones, but Loge had 
eaten meat, bones, and trough altogether. All agreed Lopt 
was beaten. Then asked Utgard Loke what art the young 



VIIL] THORNS JOURNEY TO JOTUNHEIM. I2i 

man (Thor's attendant) understood ? Thjalfe answered, 
that he would run a race with any one that Utgard Loke 
would appoint. There was a very good race ground on a 
level field. Utgard Loke called a young man named 
Huge, and bade him run with Thjalfe. Thjalfe runs his 
best, at three several attempts — according to received 
Saga customs, — h\x\ is of course beaten in the race. 

" Then i^sked Utgard Loke of Thor, what were the 
feats that he v/ould attempt corresponding to the fame that 
went abroad of him ? Thor answered that he thought he 
could beat any one at drinking. Utgard Loke said, ' Very 
good ; ' and bade his cup-bearer bring out the horn from 
which his courtiers were accustomed to drink. Immedi- 
ately appeared the cup-bearer, and placed the horn in 
Thor's hand. Utgard Loke then said, ' that to empty that 
horn at one pull was well done ; some drained it at twice ; 
but that he was a wretched drinker who could Uvjt finish it 
at the third draught.' Thor looked at the horn, and 
thought that it was not large, though it was tolerably long. 
He was very thirsty, lifted it to his mouth, and was very 
happy at the thought of so good a draught. When he 
could drink no more, he took the horn from his mouth, 
and saw, to his astonishment, that there was little less in 
it than before. Utgard Loke said : ' Well hast thou 
drunk, yet not much. I should never have believed but 
that Asar-Thor could have drunk more ; however, of this 
I am confident, thou wilt empty it at the second time.' 
He drank again ; but when he took away the horn from 
his mouth, it seemed to him that it had sunk less this 
time than the first; yet the horn might now be carried 
without spilling. 

" Then said Utgard Loke : * How is this, Thor ? If 
thou dost not reserve thyself purposely for the third 
draught, thine honor must be lost ; how canst thou be re- 
garded as a great man, as the CEsir look upon thee, if 



122 LE TTERS FROM HIGH LA TITUDES. [VIII 

thou dost not distinguish thyself in other ways more than 
thou hast done in this ? ' 

" Then was Thor angry, put the horn to his mouth 
drank with all his might, and strained himself to the ut- 
most; and when he looked into the horn it was now some- 
what lessened. He gave up the horn, and would not drink 
any more. ' Now,' said Utgard Loke, ' now is it clear that 
thy strength is not so great as we supposed. Wilt thou try 
some other game, for we see that thou canst not succeed 
in this ? ' Thor answered : ' I will now try something else ; 
but I wonder who, amongst the CEsir, would call that a lit- 
tle drink ! What play will you propose ? ' 

" Utgard Loke answered : ' Young men think it mere 
play to lift my cat from the ground ; and I would never 
have proposed this to CEsir Thor, if I did not perceive 
that thou art a much less man than I had thought thee ! 
Thereupon sprang an uncommonly great grey cat upon the 
floor. Thor advanced, took the cat round the body, and 
lifted it up. The cat bent its back in the same degree as 
Thor lifted ; and when Thor had lifted one of its feet from 
the ground, and was not able to lift it any higher, said 
Utgard Loke : ' The game has terminated just as I ex- 
pected. The cat is very great, and Thor is low and small, 
compared with the great men who are here with us.' 

" Then said Thor : ' Little as you call me, I challenge 
any one to wrestle with me, for now I am angry.' Utgard 
Loke answered, looking round upon the benches : ' I see 
no one here who would not deem it play to wrestle with 
thee : but let us call hither the old Ella, my nurse ; with 
her shall Thor prove his strength, if he will. She has given 
many one a fall who appeared far stronger than Thor is.' 
On this there entered the hall an old woman ; and Utgard 
Loke said she would wrestle with Thor. In short, the 
contest went so, that the more Thor exerted himself, the 
firmer she stood ; and now began the old woman to exert 



VII I.] TIJOR'S JOURNEY TO JOTUNHEIM. 123 

herself, and Thor to give way, and severe struggltis fol- 
lowed. It was not long before Thor was brought down on 
one knee. Then Utgard Loke stepped forward, bade 
them cease the struggle, and said that Thor should at- 
tempt nothing more at his court. It was now drawing to- 
wards night ; Utgard Loke showed Thor and his com- 
panions their lodging, where they were well accommo- 
dated. 

" As soon as it was light the next morning, up rose 
Thor and his companions, dressed themselves, and pre- 
pared to set out. Then came Utgard Loke, and ordered 
the table to be set, where there wanted no good provisions, 
either meat or drink. When they had breakfasted, they set 
out on their way. Utgard Loke accompanied them out of 
the castle ; but at parting he asked Thor how the journey 
had gone off; whether he had found any man more mighty 
than himself.? Thor answered, that the enterprise had 
brought him much dishonor^ it was not to be denied, and 
that he must esteem himself a man of no account, which 
much mortified him. 

" Utgard Loke replied : * Now will I tell thee the truth, 
since thou art out of my castle, where, so long as I live 
and reign, thou shalt never re-enter ; and whither, believe 
me, thou hadst never come if I had known before what 
might thou possessest, and that thou wouldst so nearly 
plunge us into great trouble. False appearances have I 
created for thee, so that the first time when thou mettest 
the man in the wood it was I ; and when thou wouldst 
open the provision-sack, I had laced it together with an 
iron band, so that thou couldst not find the means to 
undo it. After that thou struckest at me three times with 
the hammer. The first stroke was the weakest, and 
it had been my death had it hit me. Thou sawest by my 
castle a rock, with three deep square holes, of which one 
was very deep : those were the marks of thy hammer. The 



124 LETTERS FROM HIGH LA TI TUBES. [VIII. 

rock I placed in the way of the blow, without thy per- 
ceiving it. 

" ' So also in the games, when thou contendedst with 
my courtiers. When Lopt made his essay, the fact was 
this : he was very hungry, and ate voraciously ; but he 
who was called Loge, wasyf/r, which consumed the trough 
as well as the meat. And Huge (mind) was my thought 
with which Thjalfe ran a race, and it was impossible for 
him to match it in speed. When thou drankest from the 
horn, and thoughtest that its contents grew no less, it was, 
notwithstanding, a great marvel, such as I never believed 
could have taken place. The one end of the horn stood in 
the sea, which thou didst not perceive ; and when thou com- 
est to the shore thou wilt see how much the ocean has dimin- 
ished by what thou hast drunk. Men will call it the ebb. 

" ' Further ' said he, ' most remarkable did it seem to 
me that thou liftedst the cat, and in truth all became terri- 
fied when they saw that thou liftedst one of its feet from 
the ground. For it was no cat, as it seemed unto thee, but 
the great serpent that lies coiled round the world. Scarcely 
had he length that his tail and head might reach the earth, 
and thou liftedst him so high up that it was but a little way 
to heaven. That was a marvellous wrestling that thou 
wrestledst with Ella (old age), for never has there been 
any one, nor shall there ever be, let him approach what 
great age he will, that Ella shall not overcome. 

" ' Now we must part, and it is best for us on both sides 
that you do not often come to me ; but if it should so hap- 
pen, I shall defend my castle with such other arts that 
you shall not be able to effect anything against me.' 

"When Thor heard this discourse he grasped his ham- 
mer and lifted it into the air, but as he was about to strike 
he saw Utgard Loke nowhere. Then he turned back to 
the castle to destroy it, and he saw only a beautiful and 
wide plain, but no castle," 



Vni.] THE LAST SUNSET 125 

So ends the story of Thor's journey to Jotunheim. 

It was now just upon the stroke of midnight. Ever 
since leaving EngLand, as each four-and-twenty hours we 
cUmbed up nearer to the pole, the belt of dusk dividing 
day from day had been growing narrower and narrower, 
until having nearly reached the Arctic circle, this, — the 
last night we were to traverse, — had dwindled to a thread 
of shadow. Only another half-dozen leagues more, and 
we would stand on the threshold of a four months' day ! 
For the few preceding hours clouds had completely cover- 
ed the heavens, except where a clear interval of sky, that 
lay along the northern horizon, promised a glowing stage 
for the sun's last obsequies. But like the heroes of old he 
had veiled his face to die, and it was not until he dropped 
down to the sea that the whole hemisphere overflowed with 
glory and the gilded pageant concerted for his funeral 
gathered in slow procession round his grave ; reminding 
one of those tardy honors paid to some great prince of 
song, who — left during life to languish in a garret — is 
buried by nobles in Westminster Abbey. A few minutes 
more the last fiery segment had disappeared beneath the 
purple horizon, and all was over. 

" The king is dead — the king is dead — the king is dead ! 
Long live the king ! " And up from the sea that had just 
entombed his sire, rose the young monarch of a new day ; 
while the courtier clouds, in their ruby robes, turned faces 
still aglow with the favors of their dead lord, to borrow 
brighter blazonry from the smile of a new master. 

A fairer or a stranger spectacle than the last Arctic 
sunset cannot well be conceived : Evening and Morning — 
like kinsmen whose hearts some baseless feud has kept 
asunder — clasping hands across the shadow of the van- 
ished night. 

You must forgive me if sometimes I become a little 
magniloquent j — for really, amid the grandeur of that fresh 



126 LE TTERS FROM HIGH LA TI TUBES. [VIII. 

primaeval world, it was almost impossible to prevent one's 
imagination from absorbing a clash of the local coloring. 
We seemed to have suddenly waked up among the colossal 
scenery of Keats' Hyperion. The pulses of young Titans 
beat within our veins. Time itself, — no longer frittered 
down into paltry divisions, — had assumed a more majestic 
aspect. We had the appetite of giants — was it unnatural 
we should also adopt "the large utterance of the early 
gods ? " 

As the ^'- Reim Hortense''' could not carry coals sufficient 
for the entire voyage we had set out upon, it had been ar- 
ranged that the steamer " Saxon " should accompany her 
as a tender, and the Onunder Fiord,, on the north-west 
coast of the island, had been appointed as the place of 
rendezvous. Suddenly wheeling round therefore to the 
right we quitted the open sea, and dived down a long grey 
lane of water that ran on as far as the eye could reach be- 
tween two lofty ranges of porphyry and amygdaloid. The 
conformation of these mountains was most curious : it 
looked as if the whole district was the effect of some pro- 
digious crystallization, so geometrical was the outline of 
each particular hill, sometimes rising cube-like, or penta- 
gonal, but more generally built up into a perfect pyramid, 
with stairs mounting in equal gradations to the summit. 
Here and there the cone of the pyramid would be shaven 
off, leaving it flat-topped like a Babylonian altar or Mex- 
ican teocalli ; and as the sun's level rays, — shooting across 
above our heads in golden rafters from ridge to ridge, — 
smote brighter on some loftier peak behind, you might 
almost fancy you beheld the blaze of sacrificial fires. The 
peculiar symmetrical appearance of these rocks arises 
from the fact of their being built up in layers of trap, al- 
ternating with Neptunian beds 3 the disintegrating action 
of snow and frost on the more exposed strata having grad- 
ually carved their sides into flights of terraces. 



VIII.] ON UNDER FIORD. 127 

It is in these Neptunian beds that the famous suitur- 
brand is found, a species of bituminous timber, black and 
shining like pitch coal ; but whether belonging to the 
common carboniferous system, or formed from ancient 
drift-wood, is still a point of dispute among the learned. 
In this neighborhood considerable quantities both of zerlite 
and chabasite are also found, but, generally speaking, Ice- 
land is less rich in minerals than one would suppose ; 
opal, calcedony, amethyst, malachite, obsidian, agate, and 
feldspar, being the principal. Of sulphur the supply is in- 
exhaustible. 

After steaming down for several hours between these 
terraced hills, we at last reached the extremity of the fiord, 
where we found the '^ Saxon " looking like a black sea- 
dragon coiled up at the bottom of his den. Up fluttered a 
signal to the mast-head of the corvette, and blowing off her 
steam, she wore round upon her heel, to watch the effects 
of her summons. As if roused by the challenge of an in- 
truder, the sleepy monster seemed suddenly to bestir itself, 
and then pouring out volumes of sulphureous breath, set 
out with many an angry snort in pursuit of the rash troub- 
ler of its solitude. At least, such I am sure, might have 
been the notion of the poor peasant inhabitants of two or 
three cottages I saw scattered here and there along the 
loch, as, startled from their sleep, they listened to the 
stertorous breathing of the long snake-like ships, and 
watched them glide past with magic motion along the 
glassy surface of the water. Of course the novelty and 
excitement of all we had been witnessing had put sleep and 
bedtime quite out of our thoughts: but it was already six 
o'clock in the morning ; it would require a considerable 
time to get out of the fiord, and in a few hours after we 
should be within the Arctic circle, so that if we were to 
have any sleep at all — now was the time. Acting on these 
considerations, we all three turned in ; and for the next 



128 LE TTERS FROM HIGH LA TI TUBES. [VIII. 

half-dozen hours I lay dreaming of a great funeral among 
barren mountains, where white bears in peer's robes were 
the pall-bearers, and a sea-dragon chief-mourner. When 
we came on deck again, the northern extremity of Iceland 
lay leagues away on our starboard quarter, faintly swim- 
ming through the haze ; up overhead blazed the white 
sun, and below glittered the level sea, like a pale blue 
disc netted in silver lace. I seldom remember a brighter 
day ; the thermometer was at 72°, and it really felt more 
as if we were crossing the line than entering the frigid 
zone. 

Animated by that joyous inspiration which induces them 
to make a fete of everything, the French officers, it appeared, 
wished to organize a kind of carnival to inaugurate their 
arri'val in Arctic waters, and by means of a piece of chalk 
and a huge black board displayed from the hurricane-deck 
of the " Reine Hortense^^'' an inquiry was made as to what 
suggestion I might have to offer in futherance of this laud- 
able object. With that poverty of invention and love of 
spirits which characterise my nation, I am obliged to con- 
fess that, after deep reflection, I was only able to answer, 
" Grog." But seeing an extra flag or two was being run up 
at each masthead of the Frenchman, the lucky idea occur- 
red to me to dress the '' Foam " in all her colors. The 
schooner's toilette accomplished, I went on board the 
^'' Reine Ho rtense^^'' and you cannot imagine anything more 
fragile, graceful, or coquettish, than her appearance from 
the deck of the corvette, — as she curtsied and swayed her- 
self on the bosom of the almost imperceptible swell, or 
flirted up the water with her curving bows. She really 
looked like a living little lady. 

But from all such complacent reveries I was soon 
awakened by the sound of a deep voice, proceeding appar- 
ently from the very bottom of the sea, which hailed the ship 
in the most authoritative manner, and imperiously demand- 



VIII.] '' LE PERE ARCTIQUEP 129 

ed her name, where she was going, whom she carried, and 
whence she came : to all which questions, a young lieuten- 
ant, standing with his hat off at the gangwa}^, politely re- 
sponded. Apparently satisfied on these points, our invisible 
interlocutor then announced his intention of coming on 
board. All the officers of the ship collected on the poop 
to receive him. 

In a few seconds more, amid the din of the most un- 
earthly music, and surrounded by a bevy of hideous mon- 
sters, a white-bearded, spectacled personage — clad in 
bear-skin, with a cocked hat over his left ear — presented 
himself in the gangway, and handing to the officers of the 
watch an enormous board, on which was written. 

« LE p:&re ARCTIQUE," 

by way of visiting card, — proceeded to walk aft, and take 
the sun's altitude with what, as far as I could make out, 
seemed to be a plumber's wooden triangle. This prelimi- 
nary operation having been completed, there then began a 
regular riot all over the ship. The yards were suddenly 
manned with red devils, black monkeys, and every kind of 
grotesque monster, while the whole ship's company, officers 
and men promiscuously mingled, danced the cancan upon 
deck. In order that the warmth of the day should not 
make us forget that we had arrived in his dominions, the 
Arctic father had stationed certain of his familiars in the 
tops, who at stated intervals flung down showers of hard 
peas, as typical of hail^ while the powdering of each other's 
faces with handfuls of flour could not fail to remind every- 
body on board that we had reached the latitude of sitow. 
At the commencement of this noisy festival I found myself 
standing on the hurricane deck, next to one of the grave 
savants attached to the expedition, who seemed to contem- 
plate the antics that were being played at his feet with that 

9 



130 LETTERS FROM HIGH LATITUDES. [VIII. 

sad smile of indulgence with which Wisdom sometimes 
deigns to commiserate the gaiety of Folly. Suddenly he 
disappeared from beside me, and the next that I saw or 
heard of him — he was hard at work pirouetting on the deck 
below with a red-tailed demon, and exhibiting in his steps 
a " verve " and a graceful audacity which at Paris would 
have certainly obtained for him the honors of expulsion 
at the hands of the municipal authorities. The entertain- 
ment of the day concluded with a discourse delivered out 
of a wind-sail by the chaplain attached to the person of the 
Pere Arctique, which was afterwards washed down by a 
cauldron full of grog, served out in bumpers to the several 
actors in this unwonted ceremonial. As the prince had 
been good enough to invite us to dinner, instead of return- 
ing to the schooner I spent the intermediate hour in pacing 
the quarter-deck with Baron de la Ronciere, — the naval 
commander entrusted with the charge of the expedition. 
Like all the smartest officers in the French navy, he speaks 
English beautifully, and I shall ever remember with grati- 
tude the cordiality with which he welcomed me on board 
his ship, and the thoughtful consideration of his arrange- 
ments for the little schooner which he had taken in tow. 
At five o'clock dinner was announced, and I question if so 
sumptuous a banquet has ever been served up before in 
that outlandish part of the world, embellished as it was by 
selections from the best operas played by the corps a'orches- 
tre which had accompanied the Prince from Paris. During 
the pauses of the music the conversation naturally turned 
on the strange lands we were about to visit, and the best 
mode of spifflicating the white bears who were probably 
already shaking in their snow shoes : but alas ! while we 
were in the very act of exulting incur supremacy over these 
new domains, the stiffened finger of the Ice king was tra- 
cing in frozen characters a " Mene, mene, tekel upharsin " 
on the plate glass of the cabin windows. During the last 



VIII.] LES MERS GLACIALES. 131 

half-hour the thermometer had been gradually falling, until 
it was nearly down to 32*^ ; a dense penetrating fog envelop- 
ed both the vessels — (the " Saxon " had long since dropped 
out of sight), flakes of snow began floating slowly down, and 
a gelid breeze from the north-west told too plainly that we 
had reached the frontiers of the solid ice, though we were 
still a good hundred miles distant from the American shore. 
Although at any other time the terrible climate we had 
dived into would have been very depressing, under present 
circumstances I think the change rather tended to raise our 
spirits, perhaps because the idea of fog and ice in the 
month of June seemed so completely to uncockneyfy us. 
At all events there was no doubt now we had got into les 
me7'S glaciales, as our French friends called them, and, what- 
ever else might be in store for us, there was sure hence- 
forth to be no lack of novelty and excitement. 

By this time it was already well on in the evening, so 
having agreed with Monsieur de la Ronciere on a code of 
signals in case of fogs, and that a jack hoisted at the mizen 
of the " Reine ITortejiseJ' or at the fore of the schooner, 
should be an intimation of a desire of one or other to cast 
off, we got into the boat and were dropped down alongside 
our own ship. Ever since leaving Iceland the steamer had 
been heading east-north-east by compass, but during the 
whole of the ensuing night she shaped a south-east course ; 
the thick mist rendering it unwise to stand on any longer 
in the direction of the banquise^ as they call the outer edge 
of the belt that hems in eastern Greenland. About three 
A.M. it cleared up a little. By breakfast time the sun re- 
appeared, and we could see five or six miles ahead of the 
vessel. It was shortly after this, that as I was standing in 
the main rigging peering out over the smooth blue surface 
of the sea, a white twinkling point of light suddenly caught 
my eye about a couple of miles off on the port bow, which 
a telescope soon resolved into a solitary isle of ice, dancing 



132 LETTERS FROM HIGH LATITUDES. [VIII. 

and dipping in the sunlight. As you may suppose, the news 
brought everybody upon deck j and when ahnost immedi- 
ately afterwards a string of other pieces, ghttering like a 
diamond necklace, hove in sight, the excitement was extreme. 

Here at all events was honest blue salt water frozen 
solid, and when, as we proceeded, the scattered fragments 
Lhickened, and passed like silver argosies on either hand, 
until at last we found ourselves enveloped in an innumer- 
able fleet of bergs, — it seemed as if we could never be 
weary of admiring a sight so strange and beautiful. It was 
rather in form and color than in size that these ice islets 
were remarkable ; anything approaching to a real iceberg 
we neither saw, nor are we likely to see. In fact, the lofty 
ice mountains that wander like vagrant islands along the 
coast of America, seldom or never come to the eastward 
or northward of Cape Farewell. They consist of land ice, 
and are all generated among bays and straits within Baffin's 
Bay, and first enter the Atlantic a good deal to the south- 
ward of Iceland j whereas the Polar ice, among which we 
have been knocking about, is iield ice and — except when 
packed one ledge above the other, by great pressure — is 
comparatively flat. I do not think I saw any pieces that 
were piled up higher than thirty or thirty-five feet above the 
sea-level, although at a little distance through the mist they 
may have loomed much loftier. 

In quaintness of form, and in brilliancy of colors, these 
wonderful masses surpassed everything I had imagined ; 
and we found endless amusement in watching their fantastic 
procession. 

At one time it was a knight on horseback, clad in sap- 
phire mail, a white plume above his casque. Or a cathe- 
dral window with shafts of chrysophras, new powdered by 
a snow-storm. Or a smooth sheer cliff of lapis lazuli ; or 
a Banyan tree, with roots descending from its branches, 
and a foliage as delicate as the efflorescence of molten 



VIII.] ICE. 133 

metal ; or a fairy dragon, that breasted the water in scales 
of emerald ; or anything else that your fancy chose to 
conjure up. After a little time, the mist again descended 
on the scene, and dulled each glittering form to a shape- 
less mass of white ; while in spite of all our endeavors to 
keep upon our northerly course, we were constantly com- 
pelled to turn and wind about in every direction — some- 
times standing on for several hours at a stretch to the 
southward and eastward. These perpetual embarrassments 
became at length very wearying, and in order to relieve 
the tedium of our progress I requested the Doctor to re- 
move one of my teeth. This he did with the greatest 
ability — a wrench to starboard, — another to port, — and up 
it flew through the cabin sky-light. 

During the whole of that afternoon and the following 
night we made but little Northing at all, and the next day 
the ice seemed more pertinaciously in our way than ever ; 
neither could we relieve the monotony of the hours by 
conversing with each other on the black boards, as the 
mist was too thick for us to distinguish from on board one 
ship anything that was passing on the deck of the other. 
Notwithstanding the great care and skill with which the 
steamer threaded her way among the loose floes, it was im- 
possible sometimes to prevent fragments of ice striking us 
with considerable violence on the bows ; and as we lay in 
bed at night, I confess that until we got accustomed to the 
noise, it was by no means a pleasant thing to hear the 
pieces angrily scraping along the ship's sides — within two 
inches of our ears. On the evening of the fourth day it 
came on to blow pretty hard, and at midnight it had fresh- 
ened to half a gale ; but by dint of standing well away to 
the eastward we had succeeded in reaching comparatively 
open water, and I had gone to bed in great hopes that at 
all events the breeze would brush off the fog, and enable 
us to see our way a little more clearly the next morning. 



134 LETTERS FROM HIGH LATITUDES. [VIII. 

At five o'clock a. m., the officer of the watch jumped 
down into my cabin, and awoke me with the news — " That 
the Frenchman was a-saying summat on Iiis blackboard ! " 
Feeling by the motion that a very high sea must have been 
knocked up during the night, I began to be afraid that 
something must have gone wrong with the towing-gear, or 
that a hawser might have become entangled in the cor- 
vette's screw — which was the catastrophe of which I had 
always been most apprehensive ; so slipping on a pair of 
fur boots, which I carefully kept by the bedside in case of 
an emergency, and throwing a cloak over — • 

" Le simple appareil 
D'une beaute qu'on vient d'arracher au sommeil," 

I caught hold of a telescope, and tumbled up on deck. 
Anything more bitter and disagreeable than the icy blast, 
which caught me round the waist as I emerged from the 
companion I never remember. With both hands occupied 
in levelling the telescope, I could not keep the wind from 
blowing the loose wrap quite oif my shoulders, and except 
for the name of the thing, I might just as well have been 
standing in my shirt. Indeed, I was so irresistibly struck 
with my owai resemblance to a colored print I remember in 
youthful days, — representing that celebrated character 
" Puss in Boots," with a purple robe of honor streaming 
far behind him on the wind, to express the velocity of his 
magical progress — that I laughed aloud while I shivered in 
the blast. What with the spray and mist, moreover, it was 
a good ten minutes before I could make out the writing, 
and when at last I did spell out the letters, their meaning 
was not very inspiriting : " Nous retoui-nons a Reykjavik !"" 
So evidently they had given it up as a bad job, and had 
come to the conclusion that the island was inaccessible. 
Vet it seemed very hard to have to turn back, after coming 



VIIL] A PARTING IN A LOMELY SPOT. 135 

SO far ! We had already made upwards of 300 miles since 
leaving Iceland: it could not be much above 120 or 130 
more to Jan Mayen ; and although things looked unprom- 
ising, there still seemed such a chance of success, that I 
could not find it in my heart to give in ; so, having run up 
a jack at the fore — all writing on our board was out of the 
question, we were so deluged with spray — I jumped down 
to wake Fitzgerald and Sigurdr, and tell them we were go- 
ing to cast off, in case they had any letters to send home. 
In the mean time, I scribbled a line of thanks and good 
wishes to M. de la Ronciere, and another to you, and 
guyed it with our mails on board the corvette — in a milk 
can. 

In the mean time all was bustle on board our decks 
and I think every one was heartily pleased at the thoughts 
of getting the little schooner again under canvass. A 
couple of reefs were hauled down in the mainsail and 
staysail, and everything got ready for making sail. 

" Is all clear for'ard for slipping, Mr. Wyse ? " 

" Ay, ay. Sir ; all clear ! " 

" Let go the tow-ropes ! " 

"All gone, Sir!" . ' 

And down went the heavy hawsers into the sea, up 
fluttered the staysail, — then — poising for a moment on the 
waves with the startled hesitation of a bird suddenly set 
free, — the little creature spread her wings, thrice dipped 
her ensign in token of adieu — receiving in return a hearty 
cheer from the French crew — and glided like a phantom 
into the North, while the " Reine Hortense " puffed back to 
Iceland.^ 

1 It subsequently appeared that the " Saxort,'" on the second day 
after leaving Onunder Fiord, had unfortunately knocked a hole in her 
bottom against the ice, and was obliged to run ashore in a sinking 
state. In consequence of never having been rejoined by her tender, 
the " Reme Hortense " found herself short of coals ; and as the en- 



136 LETTERS FROM HIGH LA TITUDES. [VIII. 

Ten minutes more, and we were the only denizens of 
that misty sea. I confess I felt excessively sorry to have 
lost the society of such joyous companions ; they had re- 
ceived us always with such merry good nature : the Prince 
had shown himself so gracious and considerate, and he 
was surrounded by a staff of such clever, well-informed 
persons, that it was with the deepest regret I watched the 
fog close round the magnificent corvette, and bury her — 
and all whom she contained — within its bosom. Our own 
situation, too, was not altogether without causing me a lit- 
tle anxiety. We had not seen the sun for two days ; it 
was very thick with a heavy sea, and dodging about as we 
had been among the ice, at the heels of the steamer, our 
dead reckoning was not very much to be depended upon. 
The best plan I thought would be to stretch away at once 
clear of the ice, then run up into the latitude of Jan May- 
en, and — as soon as we should have reached the parallel 
of its northern extremity — bear down on the land. If 
there was any access at all to the island, it was very evi- 
dent it would be on its northern or eastern side ; and now 
that we were alone, to keep on knocking up through a hun- 
dred miles or so of ice in a thick fog, in our fragile 
schooner, would have been out of the question. 

The ship's course, therefore, having been shaped in ac- 
cordance with this view, I stole back into bed and resumed 
my violated slumbers. Towards mid- day the weather be- 
gan to moderate, and by four o'clock we were skimming 
along on a smooth sea, with all sails set. This state of 
prosperity continued for the next twenty-four hours ; we 
had made about eighty knots since parting company with 

cumbered state of the sea rendered it already very unlikely that any 
access would be found open to the island, M. de la Ronciere very prop- 
erly judged it advisable to turn back. He re-entered the Reykjavik 
harbor without so much as a shovelful of coals left on board. 



VIII.] ANXIOUS HOURS. 137 

the Frenchman, and it was now time to run down West 
and pick up the land. Luckily the sky was pretty clear, 
and as we sailed on through open water I really began to 
think our prospects very brilliant. But about three o'clock 
on the second day, specks of ice began to flicker here and 
there on the horizon, then larger bulks came floating by 
in forms as picturesque as ever — (one, I particularly re- 
member, a human hand thrust up out of the water with 
outstretched forefinger, as if to warn us against proceeding 
farther), until at last the whole sea became clouded with 
hummocks that seemed to gather on our path in magical 
multiplicity. 

Up to this time we had seen nothing of the island, yet 
I knew we must be within a very few miles of it ; and now 
to make things quite pleasant, there descended upon us a 
thicker fog than I should have thought the atmosphere 
capable of sustaining ; it seemed to hang in solid festoons 
from the masts and spars. To say that you could not see 
your hand, ceased almost to be any longer figurative even 
the ice was hid — except those fragments immediately adja- 
cent, whose ghastly brilliancy the mist itself could not quite 
extinguish, as they glimmered round the vessel like a circle 
of luminous phantoms. The perfect stillness of the sea 
and sky added very much to the solemnity of the scene ; 
almost every breath of wind had fallen, scarcely a ripple 
tinkled against the copper sheathing, as the solitary little 
schooner glided along at the rate of half a knot or so an 
hour, and the only sound we heard was the distant wash 
of waters, but whether on a great shore, or along a belt of 
solid ice, it was impossible to say. In such weather, — as 
the original discoverers of Jan Mayen said under similar 
circumstances, — " it was easier to hear land than to see it." 
Thus, hour after hour passed by and brought no change. 
Fitz and Sigurdr — who had begun quite to disbelieve 
in the existence of the island — went to bed, while I remain- 



138 LETTERS FROM HIGH LATITUDES. [VIII. 

ed pacing up and down the deck, anxiously questioning 
eacli quarter of tlie grey canopy that enveloped us. At 
last, about four in the morning, I fanced some change was 
going to take place ; the heavy wreaths of vapor seemed 
to be imperceptibly separating, and in a few minutes more 
the solid roof of grey suddenly split asunder, and I beheld 
through the gap — thousands of feet overhead, as if 
suspended in the crystal sky — a cone of illuminated 
snow. 

You can imagine my delight. It was really that of an 
.•anchorite catching a glimpse of the seventh heaven. There 
at last was the long-sought-for mountain actually tumbling 
down upon our heads. Columbus could not have been 
more pleased when, after nights of watching, he saw the 
first fires of a new hemisphere dance upon the water \ nor 
indeed, scarcely less disappointed at their sudden disap- 
pearance than I was, when, after having gone below to 
wake Sigurdr, and tell him we had seen bona fide terra- 
firma, I found, on returning upon deck, that the roof of 
mist had closed again, and shut out all trace of the tran- 
sient vision. However I had got a clutch of the Island, 
and no slight matter should make me let go my hold. In 
the meantime there was nothing for it but to wait patiently 
until the curtain lifted ; and no child ever stared more 
eagerly at a green drop-scene in expectation of " the realm of 
dazzling splendor " promised in the bill, than I did at 
the motionless grey folds that hung round us. At last the 
hour of liberation came ; a purer light seemed gradually to 
penetrate the atmosphere, brown turned to grey, and grey 
to white, and white to transparent blue, until the lost hori- 
zon entirely reappeared except where in one direction an 
impenetrable veil of haze still hung suspended from the 
zenith to the sea. Behind that veil I knew must lie Jan 
Mayen. 

A few minutes more, and slowly, silently, in a manner 



VIII.] GLACIERS. 139 

you could take no count of, its dusky hem first deepened 
to a violet tinge, then gradually lifting, displayed a long 
line of coast — in reality but the roots of Beerenberg — 
dyed of the darkest purple ; while obedient to a common 
impulse, the clouds that wrapped its summit gently disen- 
gaged themselves, and left the mountain standing in all 
the magnificence of his 6,870 feet, girdled by a single zone 
of pearly vapor, from underneath whose floating folds 
seven enormous glaciers rolled down into the sea ! Nature 
seemed to have turned scene-shifter, so artfully were the 
phases of this glorious spectacle successively developed. 

Although — by reason of our having hit upon its side 
instead of its narrow end — the outline of Mount Beeren- 
berg appeared to us more like a sugar-loaf than a spire — ■ 
broader at the base and rounder at the top than I had im- 
agined, — in size, color,, and effect, it far surpassed any- 
thing I had anticipated. The glaciers were quite an unex- 
pected element of beauty. Imagine a mighty river of as 
great a volume as the Thames — started down the side of 
a mountain, — bursting over every impediment, — whirled 
into a thousand eddies, — tumbling and raging on from 
ledge to ledge in quivering cataracts of foam, — then sud- 
denly struck rigid by a power so instantaneous in its action 
that even the froth and fleeting wreaths of spray have 
stiffened into the immutability of sculpture. Unless you 
had seen it, it would be almost impossible to conceive the 
strangeness of the contrast between the actual tranquillity 
of these silent crystal rivers and the violent descending 
energy impressed upon their exterior. You must remem- 
ber, too, all this is upon a scale of such prodigious magni- 
tude, that when we succeeded subsequently in approaching 
the spot — where with a leap like that of Niagara one of 
these glaciers plunges down into the sea — -the eye, no lon- 
ger able to take in its fluvial character, was content to rest 
in simple astonishment at what then appeared a lucent 



140 LETTERS FROM HIGH LA TITUDES. [VIII. 

precipice of grey-green ice, rising to the height of several 
hundred feet above the masts of the vesseL 

As soon as we had got a little over our first feelings of 
astonishment at the panorama thus suddenly revealed to us 
by the lifting of the fog, I began to consider what would 
be the best way of getting to the anchorage on the west — 
or Greenland side of the island. We were still seven or 
eight miles from the shore^ and the northern extremity 
of the island, round which we should have to pass, lay 
about five leagues off, bearing West by North, while between 
us and the land stretched a continuous breadth of floating 
ice. The hummocks, however, seemed to be pretty loose 
with openings here and there, so that with careful sailing I 
thought we might pass through, and perhaps on the farther 
side of the island come into a freer sea. Alas ! after having 
with some difficulty wound along until we were almost 
abreast of the cape, we were stopped dead short by a solid 
rampart of fixed ice, which in one direction leant upon the 
land, and in the other ran away as far as the eye could 
reach into the dusky North. Thus hopelessly cut off from 
all access to the western and better anchorage, it only re- 
mained to put about, and — running down along the land 
■ — attempt to reach a kind of open roadstead on the eastern 
side, a little to the south of the volcano described by Dr. 
Scoresby : but in this endeavor also we were doomed to be 
disappointed ; for after sailing some considerable distanc3 
through a field of ice, which kept getting more closely pack- 
ed as we pushed further into it, we came upon another 
barrier equally impenetrable, that stretched away from the 
island toward the Southward and Eastv/ard. Under these 
circumstances, the only thing to be done was to get back 
to where the ice was looser, and attempt a landing wher- 
ever a favorable opening presented itself. But even to ex- 
tricate ourselves from our present position, was now no 
longer of such easy performance. Within the last hour the 



VIII.] DIFFICUL TIES. 1 4 1 

wind had shifted into the North-West ; that is to say, it was 
now blowing right down the path'along which we had pick- 
ed our way ; in order to return, therefore, it would be neces- 
sary to work the ship to windward through' a sea as thickly 
crammed with ice as a lady's boudoir is with furniture. 
Moreover, it had become evident, from the obvious closing 
of the open spaces, that some considerable pressure was 
acting upon the outside of the field ; but whether origina- 
ting in a current, or the change of wind, or another field 
being driven down upon it, I could not tell. Be that as it 
might, out we must get, — unless we wanted to be cracked 
like a walnut-shell between the drifting ice and the solid 
belt to leeward ; so sending a steady hand to the helm, — 
for these unusual phenomena had begun to make some of 
my people lose their heads a little, no one onboard having 
ever seen a bit of ice before, — I stationed myself in the 
bows, while Mr. Wyse conned the vessel from the square 
yard. Then there began one of the prettiest and most 
exciting pieces of nautical manoeuvring that can be imagin- 
ed. Every single soul on board was summoned upon de^k ; 
to all, their several stations and duties were assigned — ■ 
always excepting the cook, who was merely directed to 
make himself generally useful. As soon as everybody was 
ready, down went the helm, — about came the ship, — and 
the critical part of the business commenced. Of course, 
in order to wind and twist the schooner in and out among 
the devious channels left between the hummocks, it was 
necessary she should have considerable way on her ; at the 
same time so narrow were some of the passages, and so 
sharp their turnings, that unless she had been the most 
handy vessel in the world, she would have had a very nar- 
row squeak for it. I never saw anything so beautiful as 
her behavior. Had she been a living creature, she could 
not have dodged, and wound, and doubled, with more con- 
scious cunning and dexterity ; and it was quite amusing 



142 LETTERS FROM HIGH LATITUDES. [VIII. 

to hear the endearing way in which the people spoke to 
her, each time the nimble creature contrived to elude some 
more than usually threatening tongue of ice. Once or twice 
in spite of all our exertions, it was impossible to save her 
from a collision ; all that remained to be done, as it became 
evident she could not clear some particular floe, or go 
about in time to avoid it, was to haul the staysail sheet a- 
weather in order to deaden her way as much as possible, 
and putting the helm down — let her go right at it, so that 
she should receive the blow on her stem, and not on the 
bluff of the bow ; while all hands, armed with spars and 
fenders, rushed forward to ease off the shock. And here 
I feel it just to pay a tribute of admiration to the cook, who 
on these occasions never failed to exhibit an immense 
amount of misdirected energy, breaking — I remember — at 
the same moment, both the cabin sky-light, and an oar, in 
single combat with a large berg that was doing no particu- 
lar harm, to us, but against which he seemed suddenly to 
have conceived a violent spite. Luckily a considerable 
quantity of snow overlaid the ice, which, acting as a buffer 
in some measure mitigated the violence of the concussion 
while the very fragility of her build diminishing the mo- 
mentum, proved in the end the little schooner's greatest 
security. Nevertheless, I must confess that more than once, 
while leaning forward in expectation of the scrunch I knew 
must come, I have caught myself half murmuring to the 
fair face that seemed to gaze so serenely at the cold white 
mass we were approaching : " O Lady, is it not now fit thou 
shouldest befriend the good ship of which thou art the 
pride ? " 

At last after having received two or three pretty severe 
bumps, — though the loss of a little copper was the only 
damage they entailed, — we made our way back to the north- 
ern end of the island, where the pack was looser, and we 
had at all events a little more breathing room, 



VI 1 1 . 1 DIFFICUL TIES, 1 43 

It had become very cold; — so cold, indeed, that Mr. 
Wyse — no longer able to keep a clutch of the rigging — had 
a severe tumble from the yard on which he was standing. 
The wind was freshening, and the ice was evidently still 
in motion ; but although very anxious to get back again into 
open water, we thought it would not do to go away without 
landing, even if it were only for an hour. So having laid 
the schooner right under the cliff, and putting into the gig 
our own discarded figure-head, a white ensign, a flag staff, 
and a tin biscuit-box, containing a paper on which I had 
hastily written the schooner's name, the date of her arrival 
and the names of all those who sailed on board, — we pulled 
aslrore. A ribbon of beach not more than fifteen yards 
wide, composed of iron-sand, augite, and pyroxene, running 
along under the basaltic precipice — upwards of a thousand 
feet high — which serves as a kind of plinth to the mountain, 
was the only standing room this part of the coast afforded. 
With considerable difficulty, and after a good hour's climb 
we succeeded in dragging the figure-head we had brought 
ashore with us, up a sloping patch of snow, which lay in a 
crevice of the cliff, and thence a little higher, to a natural 
pedestal formed by a broken shaft of rock ; where — after 
having tied the tin box round her neck, and duly plant- 
ed the white ensign of St. George beside her, — we left 
the superseded damsel, somewhat grimly smiling across 
the frozen ocean at her feet, until some Bacchus of a bear 
should come to relieve the loneliness of my wooden 
Ariadne. 

On descending to the water's edge, we walked some lit- 
tle distance along the beach without observing anything 
very remarkable, unless it were the network of vertical and 
horizontal dikes of basalt which shot in every direction 
through the scoriae and conglomerate of which the cliff seem- 
ed to be composed. Innumerable sea-birds sat in the crev- 
ices and ledges of the uneven surface, or flew about us with 



144 LETTERS FROM HIGH LATITUDES [Vill. 

such confiding curiosity, tliat by reaching out my hand I 
could touch their wings as they poised themselves in the 
air alongside. There was one old sober-sides with whom 
I passed a good ten minutes tete-a-tete^ trying who could 
stare the other out of countenance. 

It was now high time to be off. As soon then as we had 
collected some geological specimens, and duly christened 
the little cove, at the bottom of which we had landed, 
" Clandeboye Creek," — we walked back to the gig. But — • 
so rapidly was the ice drifting down upon the island, — we 
found it had already become doubtful whether we should 
not have to carry the boat over the patch which — -during the 
couple of hours we had spent on shore — had almost cut her 
off from access to the water. If this was the case with the 
gig, it was very evident the quicker we got the schooner out 
to sea again the better. So immediately we returned on 
board, having first fired a gun in token of adieu to the deso- 
late land we should never again set foot on, the ship was 
put about, and our task of working out towards the open 
water recommenced. As this operation was likely to require 
some time, directly breakfast was over, (it was now about 
eleven o'clock a.m.,) and after a vain attempt had been 
made to take a photograph of the mountain, which the mist 
was again beginning to envelope, I turned in to take a nap, 
which I rather needed, — ^fuUy expecting that oy the time I 
awoke we should be beginning to get pretty clear of the 
pack. On coming on deck, however, four hours later, 
although we had reached away a considerable distance from 
the land, and had even passed the spot, where, the day 
before, the sea was almost free, — the floes seemed closer 
than ever ; and, what was worse, from the mast-head not a 
vestige of open water was to be discovered. On every side, 
as far as the eye could reach, there stretched over the sea 
one cold white canopy of ice. 



VIII.] « CLANDEB O YE CREEK. " 1 45 

The prospect of being beset, in so slightly built a craft, 
was — to say the least — unpleasant ; it looked very much as 
if fresh packs were driving down upon us from the very 
direction in which we were trying to push out, yet it had 
become a matter of doubt which course it would be best to 
steer. To remain stationary was out of the question ; the 
pace at which the fields drift, is sometimes very rapid,^ and 
the first nip would settle the poor little schooner's business 
for ever. At the same time, it was quite possible that any 
progress we succeeded in making, instead of tending towards 
her liberation, might perhaps be only getting her deeper 
into the scrape. One thing was very certain, — -Northing 
or Southing might be an even chance, but whatever East- 
ing we could make must be to the good ; so I determined 
to choose whichever vein seemed to have most Easterly di- 
rection in it. Two or three openings of this sort from time 
to time presented themselves ; but in every case, after fol- 
lowing them a certain distance, they proved to be but ad- 
de-sacs^ and we had to return discomfited. My great hope 
was in a change of wind. It was already blowing very 
fresh from the northward and eastward ; and if it would but 
fshift a few points, in all probability the ice would loosen as 
rapidly as it had collected. In the mean time, the only 

I Dr. Scoresby states that the invariable tendency of fields of ice is to 
drift south-westward, and that the strange effects produced by their 
occasional rapid motions, is one of the most striking objects the Polar 
Seas present, and certainly the most terrific. They frequently acquire a 
rotary motion, whereby their circumference attains a velocity of several 
miles an hour ; and it is scarcely possible to conceive the consequences 
produced by a body, exceeding ten thousand million tons in weight, 
coming in contact with another under such circumstances . The strong- 
est ship is but an insignificant impediment between two fields in motion. 
Numbers of whale vessels have thus been destroyed ; some have been 
thrown upon the ice ; some have had their hulls completely torn open, 
or divided in two, and others have been overrun by the ice, and buried 
beneath its heaped fragments. 

10 



146 LETTERS FROM HIGH LATITUDES. [VIII. 

thing to do was to keep a sharp look-out, sail the vessel 
carefully, and take advantage of every chance of getting to 
the eastward. 

It now grew colder than ever, — the distant land was 
almost hid with fog, — tattered dingy clouds came crowding 
over the heavens, — while Wilson moved uneasily about the 
deck, with the air of Cassandra at the conflagration of 
Troy. It was Sunday, the 14th of July, and I had a mo- 
mentary fancy that I could hear the sweet church bells in 
England pealing across the cold white flats which sur- 
rounded us. At last, about five o'clock p. m., the wind 
shifted.a point or two, then flew round into the south-east. 
Not long after, just as I had expected, the ice evidently 
began to loosen, — a promising opening was reported from 
the mast-head, a mile or so away on the port-bow, and by 
nine o'clock we were spanking along, at the rate of eight 
knots an hour, under a double-reefed mainsail and staysail 
— down a continually widening channel, between two wave- 
lashed ridges of drift ice. Before midnight, we had re- 
gained the open sea, and were standing away 

" To Norroway, 
To Norroway over the faem." 

In the forenoon I had been too busy to have our usual 
Sunday church ; but as soon as we were pretty clear of the 
ice I managed to have a short service in the cabin. 

Of our run to Hammerfest I have nothing particular to 
say. The distance is eight hundred miles, and we did it 
in eight days. On the whole, the weather was pretty fair, 
though cold, and often foggy. One day indeed was per- 
fectly lovely, — the one before we made the coast of Lap- 
land, — without a cloud to be seen for the space of twenty- 
four hours ; giving me an opportunity of watching the sun 
performing his complete circle overhead, and taking a nie- 



^^MH 



iii 



IMi 



'f^Mm^MWWmlliwM^^^n^^M 




VIIL] '' TO NORROWAY, OVER THE FAEMr 149 

ridian altitude at midnight. We were then in 70° 25' North 
latitude ; i. e., almost as far north as the North Cape ; yet 
the thermometer had been up to 80° during the afternoon. 
Shortly afterwards the fog came on again, and next 
morning it was blowing very hard from the eastward. This 
was the more disagreeable, as it is always very difficult, 
under the most favorable circumstances, to find one's way 
into any harbor along this coast, fenced off, as it is, from 
the ocean by a complicated outwork of lofty islands, which 
in their turn, are hemmed in by nests of sunken rock, sown 
as thick as peas, for miles to seaward. There are no pilots 
until you are within the islands, and no longer want them, 
— no light-houses or beacons of any sort ; and all that you 
have to go by is the shape of the hill-tops ; but as, on the 
clearest day, the outline of the mountains have about as 
much variety as the teeth of a saw, and as on a cloudy day, 



'"Sf^^^^^^^Sk 




which happens about seven times a week, you see nothing 
but the line of their dark roots, — the unfortunate mariner, 
who goes poking about for the narrow passage which is to 
lead him between the islands, — at the hacJz of one of which 
a pilot is waiting for him, — will, in all probability, have 
already placed his \essel in a position to render that func- 
tionary's further attendance a work of supererogation. At 
least, I know it was as much surprise as pleasure that I 
experienced, when, after having with many misgivings ven- 
tured to slip through an opening in the monotonous barri- 
cade of mountains, we found it was the right channel to 
our port. If the king of all the Goths would only stick 
up a light-house here and there along the ^^g^ of his 



ISO LETTERS FROM HIGH LA TITUDES. [VIII. 

Arctic seaboard, he would save many an honest fellow a 
heart-ache. 




I must now finish this long letter. 

Hammerfest is scarcely worthy of my wasting paper on 
it. When I tell 3'Ou that it is the most northerly town in 
Europe, I think I have mentioned its only remarkable 
characteristic. It stands on the edge of an enormous 
sheet of water, completely landlocked by three islands, 
and consists of a congregation of wooden houses, plastered 
up against a steep mountain ; some of which being built 
on piles, give the notion of the place having slipped down 
off the hill half-way into the sea. Its poiDulation is so and 
so, — its chief exports this and that ; for all v/hich, see Mr. 
Murray's " Handbook," where you will find all such mat- 
ters much more clearly and correctly set down than I am 
likely to state them. At all events, it produces milk, 
cream — not butter — salad, and bad potatoes ; which is 
what we are most interested in at present. To think that 
you should be all revelling this very moment in green-peas 
and cauliflowers. I hope you don't forget your grace be- 
fore dinner. 

I will write to you again before setting sail for Spitz- 
bergen. 



LETTER IX. 



EXTRACT FROM THE " MONITEUR OF THE 31 ST JULY. 

I HAVE received a copy of the " Moniteur " of the 31st 
July, containing so graphic an account of the voyage of tlie 
" Reine Hortense^'' towards Jan Mayen, and of the catas- 
trophe to her tender the " Saxon,'^ — in consequence of 
which tlie corvette was compelled to abandon her voyage 
to the Northward, — that I must forward it to you. 

{Translatio7t.) 

'* Voyage of Discovery along the Banquise^ north of Iceland^ 
by ' La Reine Hortense.' 

" It fell to the lot of an officer of the French navy, M. 
Jules de Blosseville, to attempt to explore those distant 
parts, and to shed an interest over them, both by his dis- 
coveries and by his tragical and premature end. 

"In the spring of 1833, o^^ the breaking up of a frost, 
^ La Lilloise,^ under the command of that brave officer, 
succeeded in passing through the Banquise, nearly up to 
latitude 69°, and in surveying about thirty leagues of coast 
to the south of that latitude. After having returned to her 
anchorage off the coast of Iceland, he sailed again in July 
for a second attempt. From that time nothing has been 
heard of ' La Lilloise' 

" The following year the ' Bordelaise ' was sent to look 
for the * Lilloise^ but found the whole north of Iceland 

15? 



154 LETTERS FROM HIGH LATITUDES. [IX. 

blocked up by ice-fields ; and returned, having been stop- 
ped in the latitude of the North Cape. 

J(, Jf. Ji. Jt. JE- Jt 4fc 

^ ^ -yf w -yf VT w 

As a voyage to the Danish colonies on the western coast 
of Greenland formed part of the scheme of our arctic navi- 
gation, we were aware at our departure from Paris, that it 
was our business to make ourselves well acquainted with 
the southern part of the ice-field, from Reykjavik to Cape 
Farewell. But while we were touching at Peterhead, the 
principal port for the fitting of vessels destined for the seal 
fishery, the Prince, and M. de la Ronciere, Commander of 
''La Reine Hortense,^ gathered — from conversations with 
the fishermen just returned from their spring expedition — • 
some important information on the actual state of the ice. 
They learnt from them that navigation was completely 
free this year round the whole of Iceland ; that the ice- 
field resting on Jan Mayen Island, and surrounding it to 
a distance of about twenty leagues, extended down the 
south-west along the coast of Greenland, but without block- 
ing up the channel which separates that coast from that of 
Iceland. These unhoped-for circumstances opened a new 
field to our explorations, by allowing us to survey all 
that part of the Banquise which extends to the north of 
Iceland,, thus forming a continuation to the observations 
made by the ^ Recherche,^ and to those which we ourselves 
intended to make during our voyage to Greenland. The 
temptation was too great for the Prince ; and Commander 
de la Ronciere was not a man to allow an opportunity to 
escape for executing a project which presented itself to him 
with the character of daring and novelty. 

But the difficulties of the enterprise were serious and of 
such a nature that no one but a sailor experienced in navi- 
gation is capable of appreciating. The ' Reine Horiense ' 
is a charming pleasure-boat, but she offers very few of the 
requisites for a long voyage, and she was destitute of 



IX.] EXTRA CT FROM THE " MONITE URr 1 5 5 

all the special equipment indispensable for a long sojourn 
in the ice. There was room but for six days' coals, and 
for three* weeks' water. As to the sails, one may say 
the masts of the corvette are merely for show, and that 
without steam it would be impossible to reckon on her 
making any way regularly and uninterruptedly. Add to 
this, that she is built of iron, — that is to say, an iron sheet 
of about two centimetres thick constitutes all her plank- 
ing, — and that her deck — divided into twelve great panels, 
is so weak that it has been thought incapable of carrying 
guns proportioned to her tonnage. Those who have seen 
the massive vessels of the fishermen of Peterhead, their 
enormous outside planking, their bracings and fastenings in 
wood and in iron, and their internal knees and stancheons 
may form an idea from such precautions — imposed by long- 
experience of the nature of the dangers that the shock — or 
even the pressure of the ice — may cause to a ship in the 

latitudes that we were going to explore. 

# # # # * 

The ' Oocyte ' had also been placed at the disposal of H. 
I. H. Prince Napoleon. This vessel which arrived at 
Reykjavik the same day that we did, the 30th of June — is 
a steam schooner, with paddles, standing the sea well, 
carrying coals for twelve days, but with a deplorably slow 
rate of speed. 

We found besides at Reykjavik the war transport ''La 
Perdrix'' 2J\di two English merchant steamers, the ''Tas- 
mania ' and the ' Saxon^' freighted by the Admiralty to take 
to Iceland coals necessary for our voyage to Greenland. 
These five vessels, with the frigate ' Artemise,' which per- 
formed the duties of guardship, formed the largest squadron 
which had ever assembled in the harbor of the capital of 
Iceland. 

Unfortunately, these varied and numerous elements 
had nothing in common, and Commodore de la Ronciere 



156 LETTERS FROM HIGH LATITUDES. [IX. 

soon saw that extraneous help would afford us no addi- 
tional security ; and, in short, that the ' Reine Hortense' — - 
obliged to go fast — as her short supplies would not allow 
long voyages, had to reckon on herself alone. However, 
the [English] captain of the ^ Saxoii' expressing a great 
desire to visit these northern parts, and displaying on this 
subject a sort of national vanity, besides promising ari 
average speed of seven knots an hour, it was decided that 
— at all events, that vessel should start alone with the 
^ Reine Hortense,^ whose supply of coals it would be able 
to replenish, in the event — a doubtful one, it is true — of 
our making the coast of Jan Mayen's Island, and finding a 
good anchorage. The ^ Reine Hortense^^ had — by the help 
of a supplementary load on deck — a supply of coals for 
eight days ; and immediately on starting, the crew as well 
as the passengers, were to be put on a measured allowance 
of water. 

A few hours before getting under way, the expedition 
was completed by the junction of a new companion, quite 
unexpected. We found in Reykjavik harbor a yacht be- 
longing to Lord Dufferin. The Prince, seeing his great 
desire to visit the neighborhood of Jay Mayen, offered to 
take his schooner in tow of the '■ Reine Hortense.^ It was a 
fortunate accident for a seeker of maritime adventures; and 
an hour afterwards, the proposition having been eagerly 
accepted, the Englishman was attached by two long cables 
to the stern of our corvette. 

On the 7th of July, 1856, at two o'clock in the morn- 
ing, after a ball given by Commander de Mas on board the 
* Artei7iise^ — the ' Reine Hortense^ with the English schooner 
in tow, left Reykjavik harbor, directing her course along 
the west coast of Iceland, towards Onundarfiord, where we 
were to join the ^ Saxon ^ which had left a few hours before 
us. At nine o'clock, the three vessels, steering east-north- 
east, doubled the point of Cape North. At noon our ob- 



IX.] EXTRACT FROM THE '' MONITEUR." 157 

servation of the latitude placed us about 67^ We had just 
crossed the Arctic circle: The temperature was that of a 
fine spring day, 10° centigrade (50° Farenh.). 

^ TT w ^ ^ 

The ^ Reine Hortense^ diminished her speed. A rope 
thrown across one of the towing-ropes enabled Lord Daf- 
ferin to haul one of his boats to our corvette. He himself 
came to dine with us, and to be present at the ceremony 
of crossing the polar circle. As to the ' Saxon^' M. de la 
Ronciere perceived by this time that the worthy English- 
man had presumed too much on his power. The ^ Saxon ' 
was evidently incapable of following us. The captain, 
therefore, made her signal that she was to take her own 
course, to try and reach Jan Mayen ; and if she could not 
succeed, to direct her course on Onundarfiord, and there 
to wait for us. The English vessel fell rapidly astern, her 
hull disappeared, then her sails, and in the evening every 
trace of her smoke had faded from the horizon. 

#^ .A£. ^ ^ 

•TV* ■^ TT TT 

In the evening, the temperature grew gradually colder ; 
that of the water underwent a more rapid and significant 
change. At twelve at night it was only three degrees centig. 
(about 37° Fahr.). At that moment the vessel plunged 
into a bank of fog, the intensity of which we were enabled 
to ascertain, from the continuance of daylight in these lati- 
tudes at this time of the year. There are tokens that leave 
no room to doubt that we are approaching the solid ice. 
True enough : — at two o'clock in the morning the officer 
on watch sees close to the ship a herd of seals, inhabitants 
of the field ice. A few minutes later the fog clears up 
suddenly ; a ray of sunshine gilds the surface of the sea, 
lighting up millions of patches of sparkling white, extend- 
ing to the farthest limit of the horizon. These are the de- 
tached hummocks which precede and announce the field 
ice ; they increase in size and in number as we proceed, 



158 LE TTERS FROM HIGH LA TI TUBES. [I X. 

At three o'clock in the afternoon we find ourselves in froni 
of a large pack which blocks up the sea before us. We 
are obliged to change our course to extricate ourselves 
from the ice that surrounds us. 

This is an evolution requiring on the part of the com- 
mander the greatest precision of eye, and a perfect knowl- 
edge of his ship. The '■ Reine Hortense^' going half speed, 
with all the officers and the crew on deck, orlides along: be- 
tween the blocks of ice, some of which she seems almost to 
touch, and the smallest of which would sink her instantly 
if a collision took place. Another danger, which it is al- 
most impossible to guard against, threatens a vessel in those 
trying moments. If a piece of ice gets under the screw, it 
will be inevitably smashed like glass, and the consequences 
of such an accident might be fatal. 

The little English schooner follows us bravely; bound- 
ing in our track, and avoiding only by a constant watch- 
fulness and incessant attention to the helm the icebergs 
that we have cleared. 

But the difficulties of this navigation are nothing in 
clear weather, as compared to what they are in a fog. 
Then, notwithstanding the slowness of the speed, it re- 
quires as much luck as skill to avoid collisions. Thus it 
happened that after having escaped the ice a first time, and 
having steered E.N.E., we found ourselves suddenly, tow- 
ards two o'clock of that same day (the 9th), not further 
than a quarter of a mile from the field ice which the fog 
had hidden from us. Generally speaking, the Banquise 
that we coasted along for three days, and that we traced 
with the greatest care for nearly a hundred leagues, pre- 
sented to us an irregular line of margin, running from 
W.S.W. to E.N.E., and thrusting forward toward the south 
—capes and promontories of various sizes, and serrated 
like the teeth of a saw. Every time that we bore up for 
E.N.E., we soon found ourselves in one of the gulfs of ice 



IX.] EXTRACT FROM THE '' MONITEURr 159 

formed by the indentations of the Banqidse. It was only 
by steering to the S.W. that we got free from the floating 
icebergs, to resume our former course as soon as the sea 
was clear. 

The further we advanced to the northward, the thicker 
became the fog and more intense the cold (two degrees 
centig. below zero); and snow whirled round in squalls of 
wind, and fell in large flakes on the deck. The ice began 
to present a new aspect, and to assume those fantastic and 
terrible forms and colors, which painters have made famil- 
iar to us. At one time it assumed the appearance of 
mountain-peaks covered with snow, furrowed with valleys 
of green and blue ; more frequently they appeared like a 
wide flat plateau, as high as the ship's deck, against which 
the sea rolled with fury, hollowing its edges into gulfs, or 
breaking them into perpendicular cliffs or caverns, into 
which the sea rushed in clouds of foam. 

We often passed close by a herd of seals, which — 
stretched on these floating islands, followed the ship with 
a stupid and puzzled look. We were forcibly struck with 
the contrast between the ficticious world in which we lived 
on board the ship, and the terrible realities of nature that 
surrounded us. Lounging in an elegant saloon, at the 
corner of a clear and sparkling fire, amidst a thousand 
objects of the arts and luxuries of home, we might have 
believed that we had not changed our residence, or our 
habits, or our enjoyments. One of Strauss's waltzes, or 
Schubert's melodies — played on the piano by the band- 
master — completed the illusion ; and yet we had only to 
rub off the thin incrustation of frozen vapor that covered 
the panes of the windows, to look out upon the gigantic 
and terrible forms of the icebergs dashed against each 
other by a black and broken sea, and the whole panorama 
of Polar nature, its awful risks, and its sinister splendors. 



l6o LETTERS FROM HIGH LA TITUDES. [IX. 

Meanwhile, we progressed but very slowly. On the 
loth of July we were still far from the meridian of Jan 
Mayen, when we suddenly found ourselves surrounded by 
a fog, and at the bottom of one of the bays formed by the 
field of ice. We tacked immediately, and put the ship about, 
but the wind had accumulated the ice behind us. At a 
distance the circle that enclosed us seemed compact and 
without egress. We considered this as the most critical 
moment of our expedition. Having tried this icy barrier 
at several points, we found a narrow and tortuous channel, 
into which we ventured ; and it was not till after an hour 
of anxieties that we got a view of the open sea, and of a 
passage into it. From this moment we were able to coast 
along the Banqiiise without interruption. 

On the nth of July at 6 a. m. we reached, at last, the 
meridian of Jay Mayen, at about eighteen leagues'^ distance 
from the southern part of that island, but we saw the ice- 
field stretching out before us as far as the eye could reach ; 
hence it became evident that Jan Mayen was blocked up 
by the ice, at least along its south coast. To ascertain 
whether it might still be accessible from the north, itw^ould 
have been necessary to have attempted a circuit to the 
eastward, the possible extent of which could not be esti- 
mated j moreover, we had consumed half our coals, and 
had lost all hope of being rejoined by the ' Saxon.^ Thus 
forced to give up any further attempt in that direction, 
Commodore de la Ronciere, having got the ship clear of 
the floating ice, took a W.S.W. course, in the direction of 
Reykjavik. 

The instant the '• Relne Hortense'' assumed this new 
course, a telegraphic signal — :as had been previously ar- 
ranged — acquainted Lord Dufferin with our determina- 

I I tlaink there must be some mistake here ; when we parted com- 
pany with the " Reine Hortense^'' we were still upward of lOO miles 
distant from the southern extremity of Jan Mayen. 



IX.] EXTRA CT FROM THE " MONITE UR:' 1 6 1 

tions. Almost immediately, the young Lord sent on board 
us a tin box, with two letters, one for his mother, and one 
for our commander. In the latter he stated that — finding 
himself clear of the ice, and master of his own movements 
— he preferred continuing his voyage alone, uncertain 
whether he should at once push for Norway, or return to 
Scotland.^ The two ropes that united the vessels were 
then cast off, a farewell hurrah was given, and in a mo- 
ment the English schooner was lost in the fog. 

Our return to Reykjavik afforded no incident worth no- 
tice; the *" Reine Hortense'' keeping her course outside the 
ice, encountered no impediment, except from the intense 
fogs, which forced her — from the impossibility of ascertain- 
ing her position — to lie to, and anchor off the cape during 
part of the day and night of the 13th. 

On the morning of the 14th, as we were getting out at 
the Dyre Fiord, where we had anchored, we met — to our 
great astonishment — the ' Cocyte^ proceeding northward. 
Her commander, Sonnart, informed us that on the evening 
of the 12th, the ' Saxon ' — in consequence of the injuries 
she had received, had been forced back to Reykjavik. 
She had hardly reached the ice on the 9th, when she came 
into collision with it ; five of her timbers had been stove 
in, and an enormous leak had followed. Becoming water- 
logged, she was run ashore, the first time at Onundarfiord, 
and again in Reykjavik roads, whither she had been 
brought with the greatest difficulty." 

^ I was purposely vague as to my plans, lest you might learn we 
still Intended to go on. 

II 



LETTER X. 



BUCOLICS THE GOAT — MAID MARIAN ^A LAPP LADY — LAPP 

LOVE-MAKING— THE SEA-HORSEMAN— THE GULF STREAM 

^ARCTIC CURRENTS A DINGY EXPEDITION — -A SCHOOL 

OF PERIPATETIC FISHES ^ALTEN THE CHATELAINE OF 

K\AFIORD — STILL NORTHWARD HO ! 

Alten, July 27 th. 
This letter ought to be an Eclogue, so pastoral a life 
have we been leading lately among these pleasant Nordland 
valleys. Perhaps it is only the unusual sight of meadows, 
trees, and flowers, after the barren sea, and still more bar- 
ren lands we have been accustomed to, that invests this 
neighborhood with such a smiling character. Be that as 
it may, the change has been too grateful not to have made 
us seriously reflect on our condition ; and we have at last 
determined that not even the envious ocean shall for the 
future cut us off from the pleasures of a shepherd life. 
Henceforth, the boatswain is no longer to be the only 
swain on board ! We have purchased an ancient goat — a 
nanny-goat — so we may be able to go a-milking upon oc- 
casion. Mr. Webster, late of her Majesty's Foot-guards, 
carpenter, etc., takes brevet-rank as dairy-maid ; and our 
venerable passenger is at this moment being inducted into 
a sumptuous barrel ^ which I have had fitted up for her re- 

1 The cask in question was bought in order to be rigged up event- 
ually into a crow's-nest, as soon as we should again find ourselves 
among the ice. 



X.] A LAPP LADY. 165 

ception abaft the binnacle. A spacious meadow of sweet- 
scented hay has been laid down in a neighboring corner 
for her further accommodation ; and the Doctor is tuning 
up his flageolet, in order to complete the bucolic character 
of the scene. The only personage amongst us at all dis- 
concerted by these arrangements is the little white fox 
which has come with us from Iceland. Whether he con- 
siders the admission on board of so domestic an animal to 
be a reflection on his own wild Viking habits, I cannot 
say ; but there is no impertinence — even to the nibbling of 
her beard when she is asleep — of which he is not guilty 
towards the poor old thing, who passes the greater part of 
her mornings in gravely butting at her irreverent tor- 
mentor. 

But I must relate our last week's proceeding in a more 
orderly manner. 

As soon as the anchor was let go in Hammerfest har- 
bor, we went ashore ; and having first ascertained that the 
existence of a post does not necessarily imply letters, we 
turned away, a little disappointed, to examine the metropo- 
lis of Finmark. A nearer inspection did not improve the 
impression its first appearance had made upon us ; and 
the odor of rancid cod-liver oil, which seemed indiscrimin- 
ately to proceed from every building in the town, including 
the church, has irretrievably confirmed us in our prejudices. 
Nevertheless, henceforth the place will have one redeeming 
association connected with it, which I am bound to men- 
tion. It was in the streets of Hammerfest that I first set 
eyes on a Laplander. Turning round the corner of one of 
the ill-built houses, we suddenly ran over a diminutive little 
personage in a white woollen tunic, bordered with red and 
yellow stripes, green trousers, fastened round the ankles, 
and reindeer boots, curving up at the toes like Turkish 
slippers. On her head — for notwithstanding the trousers, 
she turned out to be a lady — was perched a gay parti- 



i66 



LETTERS FROM HIGH LATITUDES. 



[X. 



colored cap, fitting close round the face, and running up 
at the back into an overarching peak of red cloth. Within 
this peak was crammed — as I afterwards learnt — a jDiece 




A LAPP LADY. 



of hollow wood, weighing about a quarter of a pound, into 
which is fitted the wearer's back hair ; so that perhaps, 
after all, there does exist a more inconvenient coiffure that 
a Paris bonnet. 

Hardly had we taken off our hats, and bowed a thou- 
sand apologies for our unintentional rudeness to the fair 
inhabitant of the green trousers, before a couple of Lapp 
gentlemen hove in sight. They were dressed pretty much 
like their companion, except that an ordinary red night- 



X.] 



LAPP GENTLEMEN. 



167 



cap replaced the queer helmet worn by the lady ; and the 
knife and sporran fastened to their belts, instead of being 
suspended in front as hers were, hung down against their 
hips. Their tunics, too, may have been a trifle shorter. 
None of the three were beautiful. High cheek-bones, 
short noses, oblique Mongol eyes, no eyelashes, and enor- 
mous mouths, composed a cast of features which their 




A. LAPP lady's bonnet. 



burnt-sienna complexion, and hair like ill-got-in hay did 
not much enhance. The expression of their countenances 
was not unintelligent ; and there was a merry, half-timid, 
half-cunning twinkle in their eyes, which reminded me a 
little of faces I had met with in the more neglected dis- 
tricts of Ireland. Some ethnologists, indeed, are inclined 
to reckon the Laplanders as a branch of the Celtic family. 
Others, again, maintain them to be Ugrians ; while a few 
pretend to discover a relationship between the Lapp lan- 
guage and the dialects of the Australian savages, and sirai- 



1 68 LEISTERS FROM HIGH LATITUDES. [X. 

lar outsiders of the human family ; alleging that as succes- 
sive stocks bubbled up from the central birthplace of man- 
kind in Asia, the earlier and inferior races were gradually 
driven outwards in concentric circles, like the rings pro- 
duced by the throwing of a stone into a pond ; and that 
consequently, those who dwell in the uttermost ends of the 
earth are, ipso facto ^ first cousins. 

This relationship with the Polynesian Niggers, the 
native genealogists would probably scout with indignation, 
being perfectly persuaded of the extreme gentility of their 
descent. Their only knowledge of the patriarch Noah is 
as a personage who derives his principal claim to notoriety 
from having been the first Lapp. Their acquaintance with 
any sacred history — nay, with Christianity at all — is very 
limited. It was not until after the thirteenth century that 
an attempt was made to convert them ; and although 
Charles the Fourth and Gustavus ordered portions of 
Scripture to be translated in Lappish, to this very day a 
great proportion of the race are pagans ; and even the 
most illuminated amongst them remain slaves to the gross- 
est superstition. When a couple is to be married, if a 
priest happens to be in the way, they will send for him 
perhaps out of complaisance ; but otherwise, the young 
lady's papa merely strikes a flint and steel together, and 
the ceremony is not less irrevocably completed. When 
they die, a hatchet and a flint and steel are invariably 
buried with the defunct, in case he should find himself 
chilly on his long journey — an unnecessary precaution, 
many of the orthodox would consider, on the part of such 
lax religionists. When they go boar-hunting — the most 
important business in their lives — it is a sorcerer, with no 
other defence than his incantations, who marches at the 
head of the procession. In the internal arrangements of 
their tents, it is not a room to themselves, but a door to 
themselves, that they assign to their womankind \ for woe 



X.] HABITS OF THE LAPS. 169 

betide the hunter if a woman has crossed the threshold 
over which he sallies to the chase ; and for three days after 
the slaughter of his prey he must live apart from the female 
portion of his family in order to appease the evil deity 
whose familiar he is supposed to have destroyed. It would 
be endless to recount the innumerable occasions upon 
which the ancient rites of Jumala are still interpolated 
among the Christian observances they profess to have 
adopted. 

Their manner of life I had scarcely any opportunities 
of observing. Our Consul kindly undertook to take us to 
one of their encampments ; but they flit so often from place 
to place, it is very difficult to light upon them. Here and 
there, as we cruised about among the fiords, blue wreaths 
of smoke rising from some little green nook among the 
rocks would betray their temporary place of abode ; but I 
never got a near view of a regular settlement. 

In the summer-time they live in canvas tents : during 
winter, when the snow is on the ground, the forest Lapps 
build huts in the branches of trees, and so roost like birds. 
The principal tent is of an hexagonal form, with a fire in 
the centre, whose smoke rises through a hole in the roof. 
The gentlemen and ladies occupy different sides of the 
same apartment ; but a long pole laid along the ground 
midway between them symbolizes an ideal partition, which 
I dare say is in the end as effectual a defence as lath and 
plaster prove in more civilized countries. At all events, 
the ladies have a doorway quite to themselves, which, 
doubtless, they consider a far greater privilege than the se- 
clusion ot a separate boudoir. Hunting and fishing are the 
principal employments of the Lapp tribes ; and to slay a bear 
is the most honorable exploit a Lapp hero can achieve. The 
flesh of the slaughtered beast becomes the property — not 
of the man who killed him, but of him who discovered his 
trail, and the skin is hung up on a pole, for the wives of all 



170 LE TTERS FR OM HIGH LA TI TUBES. [X. 

who took part in the expedition to shoot at with their eyes 
bandaged. Fortunate is she whose arrow pierces the 
trophy, — not only does it become her prize, but, in the eyes 
of the whole settlement, her husband is looked upon thence- 
forth as the most fortunate of men. As long as the chase 
is going on, the women are not allowed to stir abroad ; but 
as soon as the party have safely brought home their booty, 
the whole female population issue from their tents, and 
having deliberately chewed some bark of a species of alder, 
they spit the red juice into their husband's faces, typifying 
thereby the bear's blood which has been shed in the hon- 
orable encounter. 

Although the forests, the rivers, and the sea supply 
them in a great measure with their food, it is upon the rein- 
deer that the Laplander is dependent for every other com- 
fort in life. The reindeer is his estate, his horse, his cow, 
his companion, and friend. He has twenty-two different 
names for him. His coat, trousers, and shoes are made of 
reindeer's skin, stitched with thread manufactured from the 
nerves and sinews of the reindeer. Reindeer milk is the 
most important item in his diet. Out of reindeer horns are 
made almost all the utensils used in his domestic economy ; 
and it is the reindeer that carries his baggage, and drags 
his sledge. But the beauty of this animal is by no means 
on a par with his various moral and physical endowments. 
His antlers, indeed, are magnificent, branching back to the 
length of three or four feet ; but his body is poor and 
his limbs thick and ungainly ; neither is his pace quite so 
rapid as is generally supposed. The Laplanders count dis- 
tances by the number of horizons they have traversed ; and 
if a reindeer changes the horizon three times during the 
twenty-four hours, it is thought a good day's work. More- 
over, so just an appreciation has the creature of what is due 
to his own great merit, that if his owner seeks to tax him 
beyond his strength, he not only becomes restive, but some- 



X.] LAPP LOVE-MAKING. 171 

times actually turns upon the inconsiderate Jehu who has 
over-driven him. When, therefore, a Lapp is in a great 
hurry, instead of taking to his sledge, he puts on a pair of 
skates exactly twice as long as his own body, and so flies 
on the W'ings of the wind. 

Every Laplander, however poor, has his dozen or two 
dozen deer ; and the flocks of a Lapp Croesus amount 
sometimes to two thousand head. As soon as a young 
lady is born — after having been duly rolled in the snow — 
she is dowered by her father with a certain number of deer, 
which are immediately branded with her initials, and thence- 
forth kept apart as her especial property. In proportion 
as they increase and multiply does her chance improve of 
making a good match. Lapp courtships are conducted 
pretty much in the same fashion as in other parts of the 
world. The aspirant, as soon as he discovers that he has 
lost his heart, goes off in search of a friend and a bottle of 
brandy. The friend enters the tent, and opens simulta- 
neously — the brandy — and his business ; while the lover 
remains outside, engaged in hewing wood, or some other 
menial employment. If, after the brandy and the proposal 
have been duly discussed, the eloquence of his friend pre- 
vails, he is himself called into the conclave, and the 
young people are allowed to rub noses. The bride then 
accepts from her suitor a present of a reindeer's tongue, 
and the espousals are considered concluded. The marriage 
does not take place for two or three years afterwards ; and 
during the interval the intended is obliged to labor in the 
service of his father-in-law, as diligently as Jacob served 
Laban for the sake of his long-loved Rachel. 

I cannot better conclude this summary of what I have 
been able to learn about the honest Lapps, than by sending 
you the tourist's stock specimen of a Lapp love-ditty. 
The author is supposed to be hastening in his sledge to- 
wards the home of his adored one : — - 



172 LE TTERS FROM HIGH LA . ""I TUBES. [X. 

" Hasten, Kulnasatz ! my little reindeer ! long is the way, and 
boundless are the marshes. Swift are we, and light of foot, and soon 
we shall have come to whither we are speeding. There shall I behold 
my fair one pacing. Kulnasatz, my reindeer, look forth ! look around ! 
Dost thou not see her somewhere — bathing ? " 

As soon as we had thoroughly looked over the Lapp 
lady and her companions, a process to which they submit- 
ted with the greatest complacency, we proceeded to inspect 
the other lions of the town ; the church, the lazar-house, — 
principally occupied by Lapps, — the stock fish establish- 
ment, and the hotel. But a very few hours were sufficient 
to exhaust the pleasures of Hammerfest ; so having bought 
an extra suit of jerseys for my people, and laid in a supply 
of other necessaries, likely to be useful in our cruise to 
Spitzbergen, we exchanged dinners with the Consul, a 
transaction by which, I fear, he got the worst of the bar- 
gain, and then got under way for this place, — Alten. 

The very day we left Hammerfest our hopes of being 
able to get to Spitzbergen at all — received a tremendous 
shock. We had just sat down to dinner, and I was help- 
ing the Consul to fish, when in comes Wilson, his face, 
as usual, upside down, and hisses something into the Doc- 
tor's ear. Ever since the famous dialogue which had taken 
place between them on the subject of sea-sickness, Wilson 
had got to look upon Fitz as in some sort his legitimate 
prey ; and v/henever the burden of his own misgivings be- 
came greater than he could bear, it was to the Doctor that 
he unbosomed himself. On this occasion, I guessed, by 
the look of gloomy triumph in his eyes, that some great 
calamity had occurred, and it turned out that the following 
was the agreeable announcement he had been in such 
haste to make : "Do you know. Sir?" — This was always 
the preface to tidings unusually doleful. " No — what ? " 
said the Doctor, breathless. "Oh nothing, Sir; only t^\o 
sloops have just arrived, Sir, from Spitzbergen, Sir — where 



X.] THE SEA-HORSEMAN. 



73 



they couldn't get, Sir ; — such a precious lot of ice — two 
hundred miles from the land — and, oh, Sir — they've come 
back with all their bows stove in ! " Now, immediately on 
arriving at Hammerfest, my first care had been to inquire 
how the ice was lying this year to the northward, and I had 
certainly been told that the season was a very bad one, 
and that the most of the sloops that go every summer to 
kill sea-horses (/. e.^ walrus) at Spitzbergen, being unable 
to reach the land, had returned empty-handed ; but as three 
weeks of better weather had intervened since their discom- 
fiture, I had quite reassured myself with the hope that in 
the mean time the advance of the season might have 
opened for us a passage to the island. 

This news of Wilson's quite threw me on my back 
again. The only consolation was, that probably it was not 
true ; so immediately after dinner we boarded the honest 
Sea-horseman who was reported to have brought the dis- 
mal intelligence. He turned out to be a very cheery in- 
telligent fellow of about five-and-thirty, six feet high, with 
a dashing " devil-may-care " manner that completely im- 
posed upon me. Charts were got out, and the whole state 
of the case laid before me in the clearest manner. Noth- 
ing could be more unpromising. The sloop had quitted 
the ice but eight-and-forty hours before making the Nor- 
way coast ; she had not been able even to reach Bear 
Island. Two hundred miles of ice lay off the southern 
and western coast of Spitzbergen — (the eastern side is al- 
ways blocked up with ice) — and then bent round in a con- 
tinuous semicircle towards Jan Mayen. That they had not 
failed for want of exertion — the bows of his ships suffi- 
ciently testified. As to our getting there it was out of the 
question. So spake the Sea-horseman. On returning on 
board the " Foam " I gave myself up to the most gloomy 
reflections. This, then, was to be the result of all my 
preparations and long-meditated schemes. What likeli- 



174 LE TTERS FROM HIGH LA TITUDES. [X. 

hood was there of success, after so unfavorable a verdict ? 
Ipse dixit, eqiciis marinics. It is true the horse-marines 
have hitherto been considered a mythic corps, but my 
friend was too substantial looking for me to doubt his ex- 
istence; and unless I was to ride off on the proverbial 
credulity of the other branch of that amphibious profes- 
sion, I had no reason to question his veracity. Neverthe- 
less, I felt it would not become a gentleman to turn back 
at the first blush of discouragement. If it were possible 
to reach Spitzbergen, I was determined to do so. I reflect- 
ed that every day that passed was telling in our favor. It 
was not yet the end of July ; even in these latitudes winter 
does not commence much before September,, and in the 
mean time the tail of the Gulf Stream would still be wear- 
ing a channel in the ice towards the pole ; so, however 
unpromising might be the prospect, I determined, at all 
events, that we should go and see for ourselves how matters 
really stood. 

But I must explain to you why I so counted upon the 
assistance of the Gulf Stream to help us through. 

The entire configuration of the Arctic ice is determined 
by the action of that mysterious current on its edges. 
Several theories have been advanced to account for its in- 
fluence in so remote a region. I give you one which ap- 
pears to me reasonable. It is supposed, that in obedi- 
ence to that great law of Nature which seeks to establish 
equilibrium in the temperature of fluids, — a vast body of 
gelid water is continually mounting from the Antarctic, to 
displace and regenerate the over-heated oceans of the tor- 
rid zone. Bounding up against the west side of South 
America, the ascending stream skirts the coasts of Chili 
and Peru, and is then deflected in a westerly direction 
across the Pacific Ocean, where it takes the name of the 
Equatorial Current. Having completely encircled Austra- 
lia, it enters the Indian Sea, sweeps up round the Cape of 



X.] THE GULF STREAM. 175 

Good Hope, and, crossing the Atlantic, twists into the 
Gulf of Mexico. Here its flagging energies are suddenly- 
accelerated in consequence of the narrow limits within 
which it finds itself compressed. So marvellous does the 
velocity of the current now become, so complete its isola- 
tion from the deep sea bed it traverses, that by the time it 
issues again into the Atlantic, its hitherto diffused and 
loitering waters are suddenly concentrated into what Lieu- 
tenant Maury has happily called — " a river in the ocean," 
swifter and of greater volume than either the Mississippi 
or the Amazon. Surging forth between the interstices of 
the Bahamas, that stretch like a weir across its mouth, it 
cleaves asunder the Atlantic. So distinct is its individu- 
ality, that one side of a vessel will be scoured by its warm 
indigo-colored water, while the other is floating in the pale, 
stagnant, weed-encumbered brine of the Mar de Sargasso 
of the Spaniards. It is not only by color, by its tempera- 
ture, by its motion, that this " pori ^Qxiwmho " is distinguish- 
ed ; its very surface is arched upwards some way above 
the ordinary sea-level toward the centre, by the lateral 
pressure of the elastic liquid banks between which it flows. 
Impregnated with the warmth of tropic climes, the Gulf 
Stream — as it has now come to be called, — then pours its 
genial floods across the North Atlantic, laving the western 
coasts of Britain, Ireland, and Norway, and investing each 
shore it strikes upon, with a climate far milder than that 
enjoyed by other lands situated in the same latitudes. Ar- 
rived abreast of the North Cape, the impetus of the cur- 
rent is in a great measure exhausted. 

From causes similar (though of less efficacy, in conse- 
quence of the smaller area occupied by water) to those 
which originally gave birth to the ascending energy of the 
Antarctic waters, a gelid current is also generated in the 
Arctic Ocean, which, descending in a south-westerly direc- 
tion, encounters the already faltering Gulf Stream in the 



176 LETTERS FROM HIGH LATITUDES. [X. 

space between Spitzbergen and Nova Zembla. A contest 
for the mastery ensues, which is eventually terminated by 
a compromise. The warmer stream, no longer quite able 
to hold its own, splits into two branches, the one squeezing 
itself round the North Cape, as far as that Varangar Fiord 
which Russia is supposed so much to covet, while the oth- 
er is pushed up in a more northerly direction along the 
west coast of Spitzbergen. But although it has power to 
split up the Gulf Stream for a certain distance, the Arctic 
current is ultimately unable to cut across it, and the result 
is an accumulation of ice to the south of Spitzbergen in 
the angle formed by the bifurcation, as Mr. Grote would 
call it, of the warmer current. 

It is quite possible, therefore, that the north-west ex- 
extremity of Spitzbergen may be comparatively clear, 
while the whole of its southern coasts are enveloped in 
belts of ice of enormous extent. It was on this contin- 
gency that we built our hopes, and determined to prose- 
cute our voyage, in spite of the discouraging report of the 
Norse skipper. 

About eight o'clock in the evening we got under way 
from Hammerfest ; unfortunately the wind almost immedi- 
ately after fell dead calm, and during the whole night we 
lay " like a painted ship upon a painted ocean." At six 
o'clock a little breeze sprung up, and when we came on 
deck at breakfast time, the schooner was skimaning at the 
rate of five knots an hour over the level lanes of water, 
which lie between the silver-grey ridges of gneiss and mica 
slate that hem in the Nordland shore. The distance from 
Hammerfest to Alten is about forty miles, along a zigzag 
chain of fiords. It was six o'clock in the evening, and we 
had already sailed two-and-thirty miles, when it again fell 
almost calm. - Impatient at the unexpected delay, and 
tempted by the beauty of the evening, — which was indeed 
most lovely, the moon hanging on one side right opposite 



X.] A SCHOOL OF PERIPATETIC FISHES. 177 

to the sun on the other, as in the picture of Joshua's mira- 
cle, — Sigurdr, in an evil hour, proposed that we should take 
a row in the dingy, until the midnight breeze should spring 
up, and bring the schooner along with it. Away we went 
and so occupied did we become with admiring the rocky 
precipices beneath which we were gliding, that it was not 
until the white sails of the motionless schooner had dwin- 
dled to a speck, that we became aware of the distance we 
had come. 

Our attention had been further diverted by the specta- 
cle of a tribe of fishes, whose habit it appeared to be — in- 
stead of swimming like Christian fishes in a horizontal 
position beneath the water — to walk upon their hind-legs 
along its surface. Perceiving a little boat floating on the 
loch not far from the spot where we had observed this 
phenomenon, we pulled towards it, and ascertained that 
the Lapp officer in charge was actually intent on stalking 
the peripatetic school — to use a technical expression — ■ 
whose evolutions had so much astonished us. The great 
object of the sportsman is to judge by their last appear- 
ance what part of the water the fish are likely to select for 
the scene of their next promenade. Directly he has deter- 
mined this in his own mind, he rows noiselessly to the 
spot, and, as soon as they show themselves, hooks them 
with a landing-net into his boat. 

By this time it had become a doubtful point whether it 
would not be as little trouble to row on to Alten as to re- 
turn to the schooner, so we determined to go on. Unfor- 
tunately we turned down a wrong fiord, and after a long 
pull, about two o'clock in the morning had the satisfaction 
of finding ourselves in a cul-de-sac. To add to our discom- 
fort, clouds of mosquitoes with the bodies of behemoths 
and the stings of dragons, had collected from all quarters 
of the heavens to make a prey of us. In vain we strug- 
gled — strove to knock them down with the oars, — plunged 



178 LETTERS FROM HIGH LATITUDES. [X. 

our heads under the water, — smacked our faces with frantic 
violence ; on they came in myriads, until I thought our 
bleaching bones would alone remain to indicate our fate. 
At last Sigurdr espied a log hut on the shore, where we 
might at least find some one to put us into the right road 
again ; but on looking in at die open door, we only saw a 
Lapland gentleman fast asleep. Awaking at our approach, 
he started to his feet, and though nothing could be more 
gracefully conciliatory than the bow with which I opened 
the conversation, I regret to say that after staring wildly 
round for a few minutes, the aboriginal bolted straight 
away in the most unpolite manner and left us to our fate. 
There was nothing for it but patiently to turn back, and 
try some other opening. This time we were more success- 
ful, and about three o'clock, a. m., had the satisfaction of 
landing at one of the wharves attached to the copper mines 
of Kaafiord. We came upon a lovely scene. It was as 
light and warm as a summer's noon in England ; upon a 
broad plateau, carved by nature out of the side of the grey 
limestone, stood a bright shining house in the middle of a 
plot of rich English-looking garden. On one side lay the 
narrow fiord, on every other rose an amphitheatre of fir- 
clad mountains. The door of the house was open, so were 
many of the windows — even those on the ground-floor, and 
from the road where we stood we could see the books on 
the library shelves. A swing and some gymnastic appli- 
ances on the lawn told us that there were children. Alto- 
gether, I thought I had never seen such a charming pic- 
ture of silent comfort and security. Perhaps the barren 
prospects we had been accustomed to made the little oasis 
before us look more cheerful than we might otherwise have 
thought it. 

The question now arose, what was to be done ? My 
principal reason for coming to Alten was to buy some salt 
provisions and Lapland dresses ; but doHs and junk were 



X.J HOSPITALITY. 179 

scarcely a sufficient pretext for knocking up a quiet family 
at three o'clock in the morning. It is true, I happened to 

have a letter for Mr. T- , written by a mutual friend, 

who had expressly told me that — arrive when I might at 
Alten, — the more unceremoniously I walked in and took 
possession of the first unoccupied bed I stumbled on, the 
better Mr. T-^ — would be pleased ; but British punctilio 
would not allow me to act on the recommendation, though 
we were sorely tried. In the meantime the mosquitoes 
had become more intolerable than ever. At last, half mad 
with irritation, I set oif straight up the side of the nearest 
mountain, in hopes of attaining a zone too high for them 
to inhabit ; and, poising myself upon its topmost pinnacle, 
I drew my handkerchief over my head — I was already 
without coat and waistcoat — and remained the rest of the 
morning " mopping and mowing " at the world beneath my 
feet. 

About six o'clock, like a phantom in a dream, the little 
schooner came stealing round the misty headland, and 
anchored at the foot of the rocks below. Returning imme- 
diately on board, we bathed, dressed, and found repose 
from all our troubles. Not long after, a message from Mr. 

T , in answer to a card I had sent up to the house as 

soon as the household gave signs of being astir — invited us 
to breakfast ; and about half past-nine we presented our- 
selves at his hospitable door. The reception I met with 
was exactly what the gentleman who had given me the 
letter of introduction had led me to expect ; and so eager 

did Mr. T seem to make us comfortable, that I did 

not dare to tell him how we had been prowling about his 
house the greater part of the previous night, lest he should 
knock me down on the spot for not having knocked him 
up. The appearance of the inside of the house quite cor- 
responded with what we had antici^Dated from the soigne 
air of everything about its exterior. Books, maps, pictures, 



l8o LETTERS FROM HIGH LA TITUDES. [X. 

a number of astronomical instruments, geological speci- 
mens, and a magnificent assortment of fishing-rods> be- 
trayed the habits of the practical, well-educated, business- 
loving English gentleman who inhabited it; and as he 
sliowed me the various articles of interest in his study, 
most heartily did I congratulate myself on the lucky chance 
which had brought me into contact with so desirable an 
acquaintance. 

All this time we had seen nothing of the lady of the 
house ; and I was just beginning to speculate as to whether 
that crowning ornament could be wanting to this pleasant 
home when the door at the further end of the room sud- 
denly opened, and there glided out into the sushine — 
" The White Lady of Avenel." A fairer apparition I have 
seldom seen, — stately, pale, and fragile as a lily — blond 
hair, that rippled round a forehead of ivory — a cheek of 
waxen purity on which the fitful color went and came — 
not with the flush of southern blood, or flower-bloom of 
English beauty, — but rather with a cool radiance, as of 
" northern streamers " on the snows of her native hills, — 
eyes of a dusky blue, and lips of that rare tint which lines 
the conch-shell. Such was the Chatelaine of Kaafiord, — • 
as perfect a type of Norse beauty as ever my Saga lore had 
conjured up ! Frithiof's Ingeborg herself seemed to stand 
before me. A few minutes afterwards, two little fair-haired 
maidens, like twin snow-drops, stole into the room ; and the 
sweet home picture was complete. 

The rest of the day has been a continued fete. In vain 
after having transacted my business, I pleaded the turning 
of the tide, and our anxiety to get away to sea ; nothing 
would serve our kind entertainer but that we should stay 
to dinner ; and his was one of those strong energetic wills 
it is difficult to resist. 

In the afternoon, the Hammerfest steamer called in 
from the southward, and by her came two fair sisters of our 



X.] THE MAELSTROM. l8l 

hostess from their father's home in one of the Loffodens 
which overlook the famous Maelstrom. The stories about 

the violence of the whirlpool Mr. T assures me are 

ridiculously exaggerated. On ordinary occasions the site 
Ol the supposed vortex is perfectly unruffled, and it is only 
when a strong weather tide is running that any unusual 
movementb in the water can be observed ; even then the 
disturbance does not amount to much more than a rather 
troublesome race. " Often and often, when she was a girl, 
had his wife and her sisters sailed over its fabulous crater 
in an open boat." But in this wild romantic country with 
its sparse population, rugged mountains, and gloomy fiords, 
very ordinary matters become invested with a character of 
awe and mystery quite foreign to the atmosphere of our own 
matter of fact world ; and many of the Norwegians are as 
prone to superstition as the poor little Lapp pagans who 
dwell among them. 

No later than a few years ago, in the very fiord we had 
passed on our way to Alten, Mdien an unfortunate boat got 
cast away during the night on some rocks at a little dis- 
tance from the shore, the inhabitants, startled by the cries, 
of distress which reached them in the morning twilight 
hurried down in a body to the sea-side,^not to afford as- 
sistance, — but to open a volley of musketry on the drown- 
ing mariners ; being fully persuaded that the stranded boat, 
with its torn sails, was no other than the Kracken or Great 
Sea-Serpent flapping its dusky wings : and when, at last, 
one of the crew succeeded in swimming ashore in spite of 
waves and bullets, — the whole society turned and fled ! 

And now, again good-by. We are just going up to dine 

with Mr, T ; and after dinner, or at least as soon as 

the tide turns, we get under way — Northward Ho ! (as Mr. 
Kingsley would say) in right good earnest this time ! ' 



LETTER XI. 



WE SAIL FOR BEAR ISLAND, AND SPITZBERGEN CHERIE 

ISLAND BARENTZ SIR HUGH WILLOUGHBY PARRY'S 

attempt to reach the north pole again amongst 

the ice iceblink — first sight of spitzbergen 

wilson decay of our hopes — constant struggle 

with the ice we reach the 8o*^ n. lat. ^a freer 

sea we land in spitzbergen english bay lady 

Edith's glacier — a midnight photograph — no rein- 
deer TO BE SEEN ET EGO IN ARCTIS WINTER IN 

SPITZBERGEN — PTARMIGAN THE BEAR SAGA — THE 

" FOAM " MONUMENT SOUTHWARDS^ — SIGHT THE GREEN- 
LAND ICE A GALE WILSON ON THE MAELSTROM- 
BREAKERS AHEAD ROOST TAKING A SIGHT — THRON- 

DHJEM. 

Thi'ondhjem^ Aug. 2 2d, 1856. 

We have won our laurels, after all ! We have landed 
in Spitzbergen — almost at its most northern extremity ; 
and the little " Foam " has sailed to within 630 miles of 
the Pole j that is to say, within 100 miles as far north as 
any ship has ever succeeded in getting. 

I think my last letter left us enjoying the pleasant hospi- 
talities of Kaafiord. 

The genial quiet of that last evening in Norway was 
certainly a strange preface to the scenes we have since 
witnessed. So warm was it, that when dinner was over, 



XI.] BEAR ISLAND, 183 

we all went out into the garden, and had tea in the open 
air; the ladies without either bonnets or shawls, merely 
plucking a little branch of willow to brush away the mos- 
quitoes ; and so the evening wore away in alternate inter- 
vals of chat and song. At midnight, seawards again began 
to swirl the tide, and we rose to go, — not without having 
first paid a visit to the room where the little daughters of 
the house lay folded in sleep. Then descending to the 
beach, laden with flowers and kind wishes waved to us by 
white handkerchiefs held in still whiter hands, we rowed 
on board ; up went the flapping sails, and dipping her 
ensign in token of adieu — the schooner glided swiftly on 
between the walls of rock, until an intervening crag shut 
out from our sight the friendly group that had come forth 
to bid us " Good speed." In another twenty-four hours 
we had threaded our way back through the intricate fiords ; 
and leaving Hammerfest three or four miles on the star- 
board hand, on the evening of the 2Sth of July, we passed 
out between the islands of Soroe and Bolsvoe into the 
open sea. 

My intention was to go first to Bear Island, and 
ascertain for myself in what direction the ice was lying to 
the southward of Spitzbergen. 

Bear — or Cherie Island, is a diamond-shaped island, 
about ten miles long, composed of secondary rocks — prin- 
cipally sandstone and limestone — lying about 280 miles 
due north of the North Cape. It was originally discovered 
by Barentz, the 9th of June, 1596, on the occasion of his 
last and fatal voyage. Already had he commanded two 
expeditions sent forth by the United Provinces to discover 
a north-east passage to that dream-land — Cathay ; and 
each time, after penetrating to the eastward of Nova 
Zembla, he had been foiled by the impenetrable line of ice. 
On this occasion he adopted the bolder and more northerly 
courses which brou2:ht him to Bear Island. Thence, 



1 84 LETTERS FROM HIGH LATITUDES. [XI 

plunging into the mists of the frozen sea, he ultimately 
sighted the western mountains of Spitzbergen. Unable to 
proceed further in that direction, Barentz retraced his steps, 
and again passing in sight of Bear Island, proceeded in a 
south-east direction to Nova Zembla, where his ships got 
entangled in the ice, and he subsequently perished. 

Towards the close of the sixteenth century, in spite of 
repeated failures, one endeavor after another was made to 
penetrate to India across these fatal waters. 

The first English vessel that sailed on the disastrous 
quest was the " Bona Esperanza,'' in the last year of King 
Edward VI. Her commander was Sir Hugh Willoughby, 
and we have still extant a copy of the instructions drawn 
up by Sebastian Cabot — the Grand Pilot of England, for 
his guidance. Nothing can be more pious than the spirit 
in which this ancient document is conceived ; expressly 
enjoining that morning and evening prayers should be 
offered on board every ship attached to the expedition, 
and that neither dicing, carding, tabling, nor other devilish 
devices — were to be permitted. Here and there were 
clauses of a more questionable morality, — recommending 
that natives of strange lands be "enticed on board, and 
made drunk with your beer and wine ; for then you shall 
know the secrets of their hearts." The whole concluding 
with an exhortation to all on board to take especial heed 
to the devices of " certain creatures, with men's heads, and 
the tails of fishes, who swim with bows and arrows about the 
fiords and bays, and live on human flesh." 

On the nth of May the ill-starred expedition got under 
way from Deptford, and saluting the king, who was then 
lying sick at Greenwich, put to sea. By the 30th of July 
the little fleet — three vessels in all — had come up abreast 
of the Loffoden islands, but a gale coming on, the ^^ Esper- 
anza " was separated from the consorts. Ward-huus — a 
little harbor to the east of the North Cape — had been 



XI.] ARCTIC DISCOVERY. 185 

appointed as the place of rendezvous in case of such an 
event, but unfortunately, Sir Hugh overshot the mark, and 
wasted all the precious autumn time in blundering amid 
the ice to the eastward. At last, winter set in, and they 
were obliged to run for a port in Lapland. Here, removed 
from all human aid, they were frozen to death. A year 
afterwards, the ill-fated ships were discovered by some 
Russian sailors, and an unfinished journal proved that Sir 
Hugh and many of his companions were still alive in 
January, 1554. 

The next voyage of discovery in a north-east direction 
was sent out by Sir Francis Cherie, alderman of London, 
in 1603. After proceeding as far east as Ward-huus and 
Kela, the " Godspeed " pushed north into the ocean, 
and on the i6th of August fell in with Bear Island. Un- 
aware of its previous discovery by Barentz, Stephen Bennet 
— who commanded the expedition — christened the island 
Cherie Island, in honor of his patron, and to this day the 
two names are used almost indiscriminately. 

In 1607, Henry Hudson was despatched by the Mus- 
covy Company, with orders to sail, if possible right across 
the pole. Although perpetually baffled by the ice, Hudson 
at last succeeded in reaching the north-west extremity of 
Spitzbergen, but finding his further progress arrested by 
an impenetrable barrier of fixed ice, he was forced to re- 
turn. A few years later, Jonas Poole — having been sent 
in the same direction, instead of prosecuting any discover- 
ies, wisely set himself to killing the sea-horses that frequent 
the Arctic ice-fields, and in lieu of tidings of new lands — 
brought back a valuable cargo of walrus tusks. In 16 15, 
Fortherby started with the intention of renewing the at- 
tempt to sail across the north pole, but after encountering 
many dangers he also was forced to return. It w^as during 
the course of his homeward voyage that he fell in with the 
island of Jan Mayen. Soon afterwards, the discovery by 



1 8 6 LE TTERS FROM HIGH LA Til VDES. [XI. 

Hudson and Davis, of the seas and straits to which they 
had given their names, diverted the attention of the public 
from all thoughts of a north-east passage, and the Spitz- 
bergen waters were only frequented by ships engaged in 
the fisheries. The gradual disappearance of the whale, 
and the discovery of more profitable fishing stations on the 
west coast of Greenland, subsequently abolished the sole 
attraction for human being which this inhospitable region 
ever possessed, and of late years, I understand, the Spitz 
bergen seas have remained as lonely and unvisited as they 
were before the first adventurer invaded their solitude. 

Twice only, since the time of Fotherby, has any attempt 
been made to reach the pole on a north-east course. In 
1773, Captain Phipps, afterwards Lord Mulgrave, sailed 
in the " Carcass " towards Spitzbergen, but he never reach- 
ed a higher latitude than 81°. It was in this expedition 
that Nelson made his first voyage, and had that famous 
encounter with the bear. The next and last endeavor 
was undertaken by Parry, in 1827. Unable to get his ship 
even as far north as Phipps had gone, he determined to 
leave her in a harbor in Spitzbergen, and push across the 
sea in boats and sledges. The uneven nature of the sur- 
face over which they had to travel, caused their progress 
northward to be very slow, and very laborious. The ice 
too, beneath their feet, was not itself immovable, and at 
last they perceived they were making the kind of progress 
a criminal makes upon the treadmill, — the floes over which 
they were journeying drifting to the southward faster than 
they walked north ; so that at the end of a long day's 
march of ten miles, they found themselves four miles fur- 
ther from their destination than at its commencement. 
Disgusted with so Irish a manoeuvre, Parry determined to 
return, though not until he had almost reached the 83rd 
parallel, a higher latitude than any to which man is known 
to have penetrated. Arctic authorities are still of opinion, 



XL] AGAIN AMONGST THE ICE. 187 

that Parry's plan for reaching the north pole might prove 
successful, if the expedition were to set out earlier in the 
season, ere the intervening field of ice is cast adrift by the 
approach of summer. 

Our own run to Bear Island was very rapid. On get- 
ting outside the island, a fair fresh wind sprung up, and 
we went spinning along for two nights and two days as 
merrily as possible, under a double-reefed mainsail and 
staysail, on a due north course. On the third day we be- 
gan to see some land birds, and a few hours afterwards, 
the loom of the island itself ; but it had already begun to 
get fearfully cold and our thermometer, which I consulted 
every two hours, plainly indicated that we were approach- 
ing ice. My only hope was that, at all events, the southern 
extremity of the island might be disengaged j for I was 
very anxious to land, in order to examine some coal-beds 
which are said to exist in the upper strata of the sandstone 
formation. This expectation was doomed to complete 
disappointment. Before we had got within six miles of the 
shore, it became evident that the report of the Hammerfest 
Sea-horseman was too true. 

Between us and the land there extended an impenetra- 
ble barrier of packed ice, running due east and west, as 
far as the eye could reach. 

What was now to be done ? If a continuous field of ice 
lay 150 miles off the southern coast of Spitzbergen, what 
would be the chance of getting to the land by going further 
north ? Now that we had received ocular proof of the 
veracity of the Hammerfest skipper in this first particular, 
was it likely that we should have the luck to find the re- 
mainder of his story untrue ? According to the track he 
had jotted down for me on the chart, the ice in front 
stretched right away west in an unbroken line, to the wall 
of ice which we had seen running to the north, from the 
upper end of Jan Mayen. Only a week had elapsed since 



i88 LETTERS FROM HIGH LATITUDES. [XI. 

he had actually ascertained the impracticability of reaching 
a higher latitude, — what likelihood could there be of a 
channel having been opened up to the northward during 
so short an interval ? Such was the series of insoluble 
problems by which I posed myself, as we stood vainly 
smacking our lips at the island, which lay so tantalizingly 
beyond our reach. 

Still, unpromising as the aspect of things might appear, 
it would not do to throw a chance away ; so I determined 
to put the schooner round on the other tack, and run west- 
wards along the edge of the ice, until we found ourselves 
again in the Greenland sea. Bidding, therefore, a last 
adieu to Mount Misery, as its first discoverers very appro- 
priately christened one of the higher hills in Bear Island, 
we suffered it to melt back into a fog, — out of which, in- 
deed, no part of the land had ever more than partially 
emerged, — and with no very sanguine expectations as to 
the result, sailed west away tov/ards Greenland. During 
the next four-and-twenty hours we ran along the edge of 
the ice, in nearly a due westerly direction, without observ- 
ing the slightest indication of anything approaching to an 
opening towards the North. It was weary work, scanning 
that seemingly interminable barrier, and listening to the 
melancholy roar of waters on its icy shore. 

At last, after having come about 140 miles since leav- 
ing Bear Island, — the long, white, wave-lashed line sud- 
denly ran down into a low point, and then trended back 
with a decided inclination to the North. Here, at all 
events, was an improvement ; instead of our continuing to 
steer W. by S., or at most W .by N., the schooner would often 
lay as high up as N.W., and even N.W. by N. Evidently 
the action of the Gulf Stream was beginning to tell, and 
our spirits rose in proportion. In a few more hours, how- 
ever, this cheering prospect was interrupted by a fresh line 
of ice being reported, not only ahead, but as far as the eye 



XI.] LAND, HO! 191 

could reach on the port bow ; so again the schooner's head 
was put to the westward, and the old story recommenced. 
And now the flank of the second barrier was turned, and 
we were able to edge up a few hours to the northward \ 
but only to be again confronted by another line, more 
interminable, apparently, than the last. But why should I 
weary you with the detail of our various manoeuvres during 
the ensuing days t They were too tedious and dishearten- 
ing at the time, for me to look back upon them with any 
pleasure. Suflice it to say, that by dint of sailing north 
whenever the ice would permit us, and sailing west when 
we could not sail north, we found ourselves on the 2d of 
August, in the latitude of the southern extremity of Spitz- 
bergen, though divided from the land by about fifty miles 
of ice. All this while the weather had been very good, 
foggy and cold enough, but with a fine stiff breeze that 
rattled us along at a good rate whenever we did get a 
chance of making any Northing. But lately it had come 
on to blow very hard, the cold became quite piercing, and 
what v/as worse — in every direction round the whole circuit 
of the horizon, except along its southern segment, — a 
blaze of iceblink illuminated the sky. A more discourag- 
ing spectacle could not have met our eyes. The iceblink 
is a luminous appearance, reflected on the heavens from 
the fields of ice that still lie sunk beneath the horizon ; 
it was, therefore on this occasion an unmistakable indica- 
tion of the encumbered state of the sea in front of us. 

I had turned in for a few hours of rest^ and release 
from the monotonous sense of disappointment, and was al- 
ready lost in a dream of deep bewildering bays of ice, and 
gulfs whose shifting shores offered to the eye every possi- 
ble combination of uncomfortable scenery, without possible 
issue, — when " a voice in my dreaming ear " shouted 
'''- Land !'' and I awoke to its reality. I need not tell you 
in what double quick time I tumbled up the companion, or 



192 LE TTERS FROM HIGH LA TITUDES. [XI. 

with what greediness I feasted my eyes on that longed-for 
view, — the only sight — as I then thought — we were ever 
destined to enjoy of the mountains of Spitzbergen ! 

The whole heaven was overcast with a dark mantle of 
tempestuous clouds, that stretched down in umbrella-like 
points towards the horizon, leaving a clear space between 
their edge and the sea, illuminated by the sinister brilUan- 
cy of the iceblink. In an easterly direction, this belt of 
unclouded atmosphere was etherealized to an indescribable 
transparency, and up into it there gradually grew — above 
the dingy line of starboard ice — a forest of thin lilac 
peaks, so faint, so pale, that had it not been for the gem- 
like distinctness of their outline, one could have deemed 
them as unsubstantial as the spires of fairy-land. The 
beautiful vision proved only too transient ; in one short 
half hour mist and cloud had blotted it all out, while a 
iresh barrier of ice compelled us to turn our backs on the 
very land we were striving to reach. 

Although we were certainly upwards of sixty miles dis- 
tant from the land when the Spitzbergen hills were first 
observed, the intervening space seemed infinitely less ; but 
in these high latitudes the eye is constantly liable to be de- 
ceived in the estimate it forms of distances. Often, from 
some change suddenly taking place in the state of the at-: 
mosphere, the land you approach will appear even to re- 
cede; and on one occasion, an honest skipper — one of the 
most valiant and enterprising mariners of his day — ac- 
tually turned back, because, after sailing for several hours 
with a fair wind towards the land, and finding himself no 
nearer to it than at first, he concluded that some loadstone 
rock beneath the sea must have attracted the keel of his 
ship, and kept her stationary. 

The next five days were spent in a continual struggle 
with the ice. On referring to our log, I see nothing but a 
repetition of the same monotonous observations. 



XIJ ICE-BOUND. 193 

"July 31st. — ^Wind W. by S. — Courses sundry to clear 
ice." 

" Ice very thick." 

"These twenty-four hours picking our way through 
ice." 

"August I St. — Wind W. — courses variable — foggy — 
continually among ice these twenty-four hours." 

And in Fitz's diary, the discouraging state of the 
weather is still more pithily expressed : — 

"August 2d.— Head wind — sailing westward— large hum- 
mocks of ice ahead, and on port bow, /. e. to the westward 
■ — hope we may be able to push through. In evening, ice 
gets thicker ; we still hold on — fog comes on — ice getting 
thicker — wind freshens — -we can get no farther — ice im- 
passable, no room to tack — struck the ice several times^ 
obliged to sail S. and W. — things look very shady." 

Sometimes we were on the point of despairing altogeth- 
er, then a plausible opening would show itself as if leading 
towards the land, and we would be tempted to run down 
it until we found the field become so closely packed, that 
it was with great difficulty we could get the vessel round— 
and only then at the expense of collisions, which made the 
little craft shiver from stem to stern. Then a fog would 
come on — so thick, you could almost cut it like a cheese — 
and thus render the sailing amang the loose ice very criti- 
cal indeed ; then it would fall dead calm, and leave us, 
hours together, muffled in mist, with no other employment 
than chess or hopscotch. It was during one of those in- 
tervals of quiet that I executed the annexed work of art, 
which is intended to represent Sigurdr, in the act of medi- 
tating a complicated gambit for the Doctor's benefit. 

About this period Wilson culminated. Ever since leav- 
ing Bear Island he had been keeping a carnival of grief in 
the pantry, until the cook became almost half-witted by 
reason of his Jeremiads. Yet I must not give you the 

13 



194 



LETTERS FROM HIGH LATITUDES. 



[XL 



impression that the poor fellow was the least wanting in 
pluck — far from it. Surely it requires the highest order of 
courage to anticipate every species of disaster every mo- 
ment of the day, and yet to meet the impending fate like 
a man — as he did. Was it his fault that fate was not 
equally ready to meet him ? His share of the business 
was always done : he was ever prepared for the worst ; but 
the most critical circumstances never disturbed the gravity 




SiGURDR. 

of his carriage, and the fact of our being destined to go to 
the bottom before tea-time would not have caused him to 
lay out the dinner table a whit less symmetrically. Still, I 
own, the style of his service was slightly depressing. He 
laid out my clean shirt of a morning as if it had been a 
shroud ; and cleaned my boots as though for a man on his 
last legs. The fact is, he was imaginative and atrabilious, — 
contemplating life through a medium of the color of his 
own complexion. 

This was the cheerful kind of report he used invariably 



XL] WILSON'S REPORT. 195 

to bring me of a morning. Coming to the side of my cot 
with the air of a man announcing the stroke of doomsday, 
he used to say, or rather, toll — 

" Seven o'clock, my Lord ! " 

" Very well ; how's the wind ? " 

" Dead ahead, my Lord — dead !^' 

" How many points is she off her course ? " 

" Four points, my Lord — full four points ! " (Four 
points being as much as she could be.) 

" Is it pretty clear ? eh ! Wilson ? " 

" — Can't see your hand, my Lord ! — can't see your 
hand ! " 

" Much ice in sight ? " 

" — Ice all round, my Lord — ice a-all ro-oundl" — and 
so exit, sighing deeply over my trousers. 

Yet it was immediately after one of these unpromising 
announcements, that for the first time matters began to 
look a little brighter. The preceding four-and twenty 
hours we had remained enveloped in a cold and dismal fog. 
But on coming on deck, I found the sky had already begun 
to clear; and although there was ice as far as the eye could 
see on either side of us, in front a narrow passage showed 
itself across a patch of loose ice into what seemed a freer 
sea beyond. The only consideration was — whether we 
could be certain of finding our way out again, should it 
turn out that the open water we saw was only a basin with- 
out any exit in any other direction. The chance was too 
tempting to throw away ; so the little schooner gallantly 
pushed her way through the intervening neck of ice where 
the floes seemed to be least huddled up together, and in 
half an hour afterwards found herself running up along the 
edge of the starboard ice, almost in a due northerly direc- 
tion. And here I must take occasion to say that, during 
the whole of this rather anxious time, my master — Mr. 
Wyse — conducted himself in a most admirable manner. 



l<)6 LE TTERS FR OM HIGH L A TI TUBES. [XI. 

Vigilant, cool, and attentive, he handled the vessel most 
skilfully, and never seemed to lose his presence of mind 
in any emergency. It is true the silk tartan still coruscated 
on Sabbaths, but its brilliant hues were quite a relief to 
the colorless scenes which surrounded us, and the dangling 
chain now only served to remind me of what firm depend- 
ence I could place upon its wearer. 

Soon after, the sun came out, the mist entirely disappeared 
and again on the starboard hand shone a vision of the 
land ; this time not in the sharp peaks and spires we had 
first seen, but in a chain of pale blue egg-shaped islands, 
floating in the air a long way above the horizon. This 
peculiar appearance was the result of extreme refraction, 
for, later in the day, we had an opportunity of watching 
the oval cloudlike forms gradually harden into the same 
pink tapering spikes which originally caused the island to 
be called Spitzbergen : nay, so clear did it become, that 
even the shadows on the hills became quite distinct, and 
we could easily trace the outlines of the enormous glaciers 
— sometimes ten or fifteen miles broad — that fill up every 
valley along the shore. Towards evening the line of coast 
again vanished into the distance, and our rising hopes re- 
ceived an almost intolerable disappointment by the appear- 
ance of a long line of ice right ahead, running to the west- 
ward, apparently, as far as the eye could reach. To add 
to our disgust, the wind flew right round into the North, 
and increasing to a gale, brought down upon us — not one 
of the usual thick arctic mists to which we were accustomed, 
but a dark, yellowish brown fog, that rolled along the sur- 
face of the water in twisted columns, and irregular masses 
of vapor, as dense as coal smoke. We had now almost 
reached the eightieth parallel of north latitude, and still 
an impenetrable sheet of ice, extending fifty or sixty miles 
westward from the shore, rendered all hopes of reaching 
the land out of the question. Our expectation of finding 



XI.] A DREARY NIGHT. 



197 



the north-west extremity of the island disengaged from ice 
by the action of the currents was — at all events for this 
season — evidently doomed to disappointment. We were 
alread}- almost in the latitude of Amsterdam Island — which 
is actually its north-west point — -and the coast seemed more 
encumbered than ever. No whaler had ever suc':eeded in 
getting more than about 120 miles further north than we 
ourselves had already come ; and to entangle ourselves 
any further in the ice — unless it were with the certainty of 
reaching land — would be sheer folly. The only thing to 
be done was to turn back. Accordingly, to this course I 
determined at last to resign myself, if, after standing on 
for twelve hours longer, nothing should turn up to improve 
the present aspect of affairs. It was now eleven o'clock ; 
P.M. Fitz and Sigurdr went to bed, while I remained on 
deck to see what the night might bring forth. It blew great 
guns, and the cold was perfectly intolerable ; billow upon 
billow of black fog came sweeping down between sea and 
sky, as if it were going to swallow up the whole universe ; 
while the midnight sun — now completely blotted out — now 
faintly struggling through the ragged breaches of the mist 
— threw down from time to time an unearthly red-brown 
glare on the waste of roaring waters. 

For the whole of that night did we continue beating up 
along the edge of the ice, in the teeth of a whole gale of 
wind ; at last about nine o'clock in the morning, — but two 
short hours before the moment at which it had been agreed 
we should bear up, and abandon the attempt, — we came up 
with a long low point of ice, that had stretched further to 
the Westward than any we had yet doubled ; and there, 
beyond, lay an open sea ! — open not only to the Northward 
and westward, but also to the Eastward ! You can imag- 
ine my excitement. " Turn the hands up, Mr. Wyse ! " 
" 'Bout ship ! " " Down with the helm ! " " Helm a-lee ! " 
Up comes the schooner's head to the wind, the sails flap- 



198 LE TTERS FROM HIGH LA TITUDES. [XI. 

ping with the noise of thunder — blocks rattling against the 
deck, as if they wanted to knock their brains out — ropes 
dancing about in galvanized coils, like mad serpents — and 
eveiy thing to an inexperienced eye in inextricable confusion ; 
till gradually she pays off on the other tack — the sails stiffen 
into deal-boards — the staysail sheet is let go — and heeling 
over on the opposite side, again she darts forward over the 
sea like an arrow from the bow. " Stand by to make sail ! " 
" Out all reefs ! " I could have carried sail to sink a man- 
of-war ! — and away the little ship went, playing leapfrog 
over the heavy seas, and staggering under her canvas, as if 
giddy with the same joyful excitement which made my own 
heart thump so loudly. 

In another hour the sun came out, the fog cleared away, 
and about noon — up again, above the horizon, grow the 
pale lilac peaks, warming into a rosier tint as we approach. 
Ice still stretches toward the land on the starboard side ; 
but we don't care for it now — the schooner's head is point- 
ing E, and by S. At one o'clock we sight Amsterdam 
Island, about thirty miles on the port bow ; then came the 
" seven ice hills " — as seven enormous glaciers are called — ■ 
that roll into the sea between lofty ridges of gneiss and 
mica slate, a little to the northward of Prince Charles's 
Foreland. Clearer and more defined grows the outline of 
the mountains, some coming forward while others recede ; 
their rosy tints appear less even, fading here and there into 
pale yellows and greys ; veins of shadow score the steep 
sides of the hills ; the articulations of the rocks become 
visible \ and now, at last, we glide under the limestone 
peaks of Mitre Cape, past the marble arches of King's Bay 
on the one side, and the pinnacle of the Vogel Hook on 
the other, into the quiet channel that separates the Foreland 
from the main. 

It was at one o'clock in the morning of the 6th of 
August, 1856, that after having been eleven days at sea, we 







i\iMH\ 



XI.] THE JAN MA YEN ICE RIVERS. 201 

came to an anchor in the silent haven of English Bay, 
Spitzhergen. 

And now, how shall I give you an idea of the wonder- 
ful panorama in the midst of which we found ourselves ? I 
think, perhaps, its most striking feature was the stillness, 
and deadness, and impassibility of this new world : ice, and 
rock, and water surrounded us ; not a sound of any kind 
interrupted the silence ; the sea did not break upon the 
shore ; no bird or any living thing was visible ; the mid- 
night sun, by this time muffled in a transparent mist, shed 
an awful, mysterious lustre on glacier and mountain ; no 
atom of vegetation gave token of the earth's vitality : an 
universal numbness and dumbness seemed to pervade the 
solitude. I suppose in scarcely any other part of the world 
is this appearance of deadness so strikingly exhibited. On 
the stillest summer day in England, there is always percep- 
tible an under-tone of life thrilling through the atmosphere ; 
and though no breeze should stir a single leaf, yet — in de- 
fault of motion — there is always a sense of growth ; but 
here not so much as \ blade of grass was to be seen on the 
sides of the bald excoriated hills. Primeval rocks and 
eternal ice constitute the landscape. 

The anchorage where we had brought up is the best to 
be found, with the exception perhaps of Magdalen a Bay, 
along the whole west coast of Spitzbergen ; indeed it is 
almost the only one where you are not liable to have the 
ice set in upon you at a moment's notice. Ice Sound, Bell 
Sound, Horn Sound — the other harbors along the west 
coast — are all liable to be beset by drift-ice during the 
course of a single night, even though no vestige of it may 
have been in sight four-and-twenty hours before ; and many 
a good ship has been inextricably imprisoned in the very 
harbor to which she had fled for refuge. This bay is 
completely landlocked, being protected on its open side by 
Prince Charles's Foreland, a long island lying parallel with 



2 02 LETTERS FROM HIGH LATITUDES. [XI, 

the mainland. Down towards either horn run two rangfes 
of schistose rocks, about 1,500 feet high, their sides almost 
precipitous, and the topmost ridge as sharp as a knife, and 
jagged as a saw ; the intervening space is entirely filled up 
b}^ an enormous glacier, which, — descending with one con- 
tinuous incline from the head of a valley on the right, and 
sweeping like a torrent round the roots of an isolated clump 
of hills in the centre — rolls at last into the sea. The length 
of the glacial river from the spot where it apparently first 
originated, could not have been less than thirty, or thirty- 
five miles, or its greatest breadth less than nine or ten ; 
but so completely did it fill up the higher end of the valley, 
that it was as much as you could do to distinguish the 
further mountains peeping up above its surface. The 
height of the precipice where it fell into the sea, I should 
judge to have been about 120 feet. 

On the left a still more extraordinary sight presented 
itself. A kind of baby glacier actually hung suspended 
half way on the hill side, like a tear in the act of rolling 
down the furrowed cheek of the mountain. 

I have tried to convey to you a notion of the falling 
impetus impressed on the surface of the Jan Mayen ice 
rivers ; but in this case so unaccountable did it seem that 
the overhanging mass of ice should not continue to thunder 
down upon its course, that one's natural impulse was to 
shrink from crossing the path along which a breath — a 
sound — might precipitate the suspended avalanche into the 
valley. Though, perhaps, pretty exact in outline and gen- 
eral effect, the sketch I have made of this wonderful scene, 
will never convey to you a correct notion of the enormous 
scale of the distances, and size of its various features. 

These glaciers are the principal characteristic of the 
scenery in Spitzbergen ; the bottom of every valley in every 
part of the island, is occupied and generally completely 
filled by them, enabling one in some measure to realize the 



XI.] THE JAN MA YEN ICE RIVERS. 203 

look of England during her glacial period, when Snowdon 
was still being slowly lifted towards the clouds, and every 
valley in Wales was brimfiil of ice. But the glaciers in 
English Bay are by no means the largest in the island. We 
ourselves got a view- — though a very distant one — of ice 
rivers which must have been more extensive ; and Dr. 
Scoresby mentions several which actually measured forty 
or fifty miles in length, and nine or ten in breadth ; while 
the precipice formed by their fall into the sea, was some- 
times upward of 400 or 500 feet high. Nothing is more 
dangerous than to approach these cliffs of ice. Every now 
and then huge masses detach themselves from the face of 
the crystal steep, and topple over into the water ; and woe 
be to the unfortunate ship which might happen to be pass- 
ing below. Scoresby himself actually witnessed a mass of 
ice, the size of a cathedral, thunder down into the sea from 
a height of 400 feet j frequently during our stay at Spitz- 
bergen we ourselves observed specimens of these ice ava- 
lanches ; and scarcely an hour passed without the solemn 
silence of the bay being disturbed by the thunderous boom 
resulting from similar catastrophes occurring in adjacent 
valleys. 

As soon as we had thoroughly taken in the strange fea- 
tures of the scene around us, we all turned in for a night's 
rest. I was dog tired, as much with anxiety as want of 
sleep ; for in continuing to push on to the northward in 
spite of the ice, 1 naturally could not help feeling that if 
any accident occurred, the responsibility would rest with 
me ; and although I do not believe that we were at any time 
in any real danger, yet from our inexperience in the pe- 
culiarities of arctic navigation, I think the coolest judg- 
ment would have been liable to occasional misgivings as 
to what might arise from possible contingencies. Now, 
liowever, all was right ; the result had justified our antici- 
pations j we had reached the so longed-for goal ; and as I 



204 LETTERS FROM HIGH LATITUDES. [XI. 

Stowed myself snugly away in the hollow of my cot, I could 
not help heartily congratulating myself that — for that night 
at all events — there was no danger of the ship knocking 
a hole m her bottom against some hummock which the 
lookout had been too sleepy to observe ; and that Wilson 
could not come m the next morning and announce " ice all 
round, a-ail ro-ound ! '' In a quarter of an hour afterwards, 
all was still on board the ''Foam;'' and the lonely little 
ship lay floating on the glassy bosom of the sea, apparently 
as inanimate as the landscape. 

My feelings on awakening next morning were very pleas- 
ant ; something like what one used to feel the first morn- 
ing after one's return from school, on seeing pink curtains 
glistening round one's head, instead of the dirty-white 
boards of a turned-up bedstead. When Wilson came in 
with my hot water, I could not help triumphantly remark- 
ing to him, — "Well, Wilson, you see we've got to Spitzber- 
gen, after all." But Wilson was not a man to be driven 
from his convictions by facts ; he only smiled grimly, with 
a look which meant — " Would we were safe back again ! " 
Poor Wilson ! he would have gone only half way with Ba- 
con in his famous Apothegm ; he would willingly "commit 
the Beginnings of all actions to Argus with his hundred 
eyes, and the Ends " — to Centipede, -with his hundred legs. 
" First to watch, and then to speed " — away ! would have 
been his pithy emendation. 

Immediately after breakfast we pulled to the shore, 
carrying in the gig with us the photographic apparatus, 
tents, guns, ammunition, and the goat. Poor old thing! 
she had suffered dreadfully from sea-sickness, and I thought 
a run ashore might do her good. On the left-hand side of 
the bay, between the foot of the mountain and the sea, 
there ran a low fiat belt of black moss, about half a mile 
broad : and as this appeared the only point in the neigh- 
borhood likely to ofTer any attraction to reindeer, it was on 



XT.] SEARCHING FOR REINDEER. 205 

this side that I determined to land. My chief reason for 
having run into English Bay rather than Magdalena Bay 
was because we had been told at Hammerfest that it was 
the more likely place of the two for deer; and as we were 
sadly in want of fresh meat this advantage quite decided 
us in our choice. As soon, therefore, as we had superin- 
tended the erection of the tent, and set Wilson hard at work 
cleaning the glasses for the photographs, we slung our rifles 
on our backs, and set oft in search of deer. But in vain 
did I peer through my telescope across the dingy flat in 
front ; not a vestige of a horn was to be seen, although in 
several places we came upon impressions of their track. 
At last our confidence in the reports of their great plenty 
became considerably diminished. Still the walk was very 
refreshing after our confinement on board ; and although 
the thermometer was below^ freezing, the cold only made 
the exercise more pleasant. A little to the northward I 
observed, lying on the sea-shore, innumerable logs of drift- 
wood. This wood is floated all the way from America by 
the Gulf Stream, and as I walked from one huge bole to 
another, I could not help wondering in what primeval for- 
est each had grown, what chance had originally cast them 
on the waters, and piloted them to this desert shore. Min- 
gled with this fringe of unhewn timber that lined the beach 
lay waifs and strays of a more sinister kind ; pieces of bro- 
ken spars, an oar, a boat's flagstaff, and a few shattered 
fragments of some long-lost vessel's planking. Here and 
there, too, we would come upon skulls of walrus, ribs and 
shoulder-blades of bears, brought possibly by the ice in 
winter. Turning again from the sea, we resumed our 
search for deer ; but two or three hours' more very stiff 
walking produced no better luck. Suddenly a cry from 
Fitz, who had wandered a little to the right, brought us 
helter-skelter to the spot where he was standing. But it was 
not a stag he had called us to come and look upon. Half 



2o6 LETTERS FROM HIGH LATITUDES. [XI. 

imbedded in the black moss at his feet, there lay a grey- 
deal coffin falling almost to pieces with age ; the lid was 
gone — blown off probably by the wind — and within were 
stretched the bleaching bones of a human skeleton. A rude 
cross at the head of the grave still stood partially upright, 
and a half obliterated Dutch inscription preserved a record 
of the dead man's name and age. 

VANDER SCHELLING .... 

COMMAN .... JACOB MOOR ... 
OB 2 JUNE 1758 ^T 44. 

It was evidently some poor whaler of the last century 
to whom his companions had given the only burial possi- 
ble in this frost-hardened earth, which even the summer 
sun has no force to penetrate beyond a couple of inches, 
and which will not afford to man the shallowest grave. A 
bleak resting-place for that hundred years' slumber, I 
thought, as I gazed on the dead mariner's remains ! — 

" I was snowed over with snow, 
And beaten with rains, 
And drenched with the dews ; 
Dead have I long been," — 

— murmured the Vala to Odin in Nifelheim, — and whispers 
of a similar import seemed to rise up from the lidless coffin 
before us. It was no brother mortal that lay at our feet, 
softly folded in the embraces of " Mother Earth," but a 
poor scarecrow, gibbeted for ages on this bare rock, like a 
dead Prometheus ; the vulture, frost, gnawing for ever on 
his bleaching relics, and yet eternally preserving them ! 

On another part of the coast we found two other 
corpses yet more scantily sepulchred, without so much as 
a cross to mark their resting-place. Even in the palmy 
days of the whale-fisheries, it was the practice of the Dutch 
and English sailors to leave the wooden coffins in which 
they had placed their comrades' remains, exposed upon 



XL I THE UNBURIED DEAD. 207 

the shore ; and I have been told by an eye-witness, that in 
Magdalena Bay there are to be seen, even to this day, the 
bodies of men wlio died upwards of 250 years ago, in sucli 
complete preservation that, wlien you pour hot water on 
the icy coating wliich encases tliem, you can actually see 
the unchanged features of the dead, through the transpar- 
ent incrustation. 

As soon as Fitz had gathered a few of the little flower- 
ing mosses that grew inside the coffin, we proceeded on 
our way, leaving poor Jacob Moor — like his great name- 
sake — alone in his glory. 

Turning to the right, we scrambled up the spur of one 
of the mountains on the eastern side of the plain, and 
thence dived down among the lateral valleys that run up 
between them. Although by this means we opened up 
quite a new system of hills, and basins, and gullies, the 
general scenery did not change its characteristics. All 
vegetation — if the black moss deserves such a name — 
ceases when you ascend twenty feet above the level of the 
sea, and the sides of the mountains become nothing but 
steep slopes of schist, split and crumbled into an even sur- 
face by the frost. Every step we took unfolded a fresh 
succession of these jagged spikes and break-neck acclivi- 
ties, in an unending variety of quaint configuration. 
Mountain climbing has never been a hobby of mine, so I 
was not tempted to play the part of Excelsior on any of 
these hill sides ; but for those who love such exercise a 
fairer or a more dangerous opportunity of distinguishing 
themselves could not be imagined. The super-cargo or 
owner of the very first Dutch ship that ever came to Spitz- 
bergen, broke his neck in attempting to climb a hill in 
Prince Charles's Foreland. Barentz very nearly lost several 
of his men under similar circumstances ; and when Scores- 
by succeeded in making the ascent of another hill near 
Horn Sound, it was owing to his having taken the precau- 



2o8 LETTERS FROM HIGH LATITUDES. [XL 

tion of marking each upward step in chalk, that he was 
ever able to get down again. The prospect from the sum- 
mit, the approach to which was by a ridge so narrow that 
he sat astride upon its edge, seems amply to have repaid 
the exertion ; and I do not think I can give you a better 
idea of the general effect of Spitzbergen scenery, than by 
quoting his striking description of the panorama he be- 
held :— 

" The prospect was most extensive and grand. A fine 
sheltered bay was seen to the east of us, an arm of the 
same on the north-east, and the sea, whose glassy surface 
was unruffled by a breeze, formed an immense expanse on 
the west ; the icebergs rearing their proud crests almost to 
the tops of mountains between which they were lodged, and 
defying the power of the solar beams, were scattered in 
various directions about the sea-coast and in the adjoining 
bays. Beds of snow and ice filling extensive hollows, and 
giving an enamelled coat to adjoining valleys, one of which 
commencing at the foot of the mountain where we stood 
extended in a continued line towards the north, as far as 
the eye could reach — mountain rising above mountain, un- 
til by distance they dwindled into insignificancy — the whole 
contrasted by a cloudless canopy of deepest azure, and en- 
lightened by the rays of a blazing sun, and the effect aided 
by a feeling of danger, seated as we were on the pinnacle 
of a rock almost surrounded by tremendous precipices, — 
all united to constitute a picture singularly sublime. 

" Our descent we found really a very hazardous, and in 
some instances a painful undertaking. Every movement 
was a work of deliberation. Having by much care, and 
with some anxiety, made good our descent to the top of 
the secondary hills, we took our way down one of the 
steepest banks, and slid forward with great facility in a 
sitting posture. Towards the foot of the hill, an expanse 
of snow stretched across the line of descent. This being 



XL] EXPLORING. 209 

loose and soft, we entered upon it without fear j but on 
reacliing the middle of it, we came to a surface of solid 
ice, perhaps a hundred yards across, over which we launched 
with astonishing velocity, but happily escaped without in- 
jury. The men whom we left below, viewed this latter 
movement with astonishment and fear." 

So universally does this strange land bristle with peaks 
and needles of stone, that the views we ourselves obtained 
— though perhaps from a lower elevation, and certainly 
without the risk — scarcely yielded either in extent or pic- 
turesque grandeur to the scene described by Dr. Scoresby. 

Having pretty well overrun the country to the north- 
ward, without coming on any more satisfactory signs of 
deer than their hoof-prints in the moss, we returned on 
board. The next day — but I need not weary you with a 
journal of our daily proceedings ; for, however interesting- 
each moment of our stay in Spitzbergen was to ourselves — 
as much jDcrhaps from a vague expectation of what we 
might see, as from anything we actually did see — a minute 
account of every w^alk we took, and every bone we picked 
up, or every human skeleton we came upon, would proba- 
bly only make you wonder why on earth we should have 
wished to come so far to see so little. Suffice it to say that 
we explored the neighborhood in the three directions left 
open to us by the mountains, that we climbed the two most 
accessible of the adjacent hills, wandered along the margin 
of the glaciers, rowed across to the opposite side of the 
bay, descended a certain distance along the sea-coast, and 
in fact exhausted all the lions of the vicinity. 

During the whole jDcriod of our stay in Spitzbergen, we 
had enjoyed unclouded sunshine. The nights were even 
brighter than the days, and afforded Fitz an opportunity of 
taking some photographic views by the light of a midjiight 
sun. The cold was never very intense, though the ther- 
mometer remained below freezing ; but about four o'clock 

14 



2 1 o LE TTERS FROM HIGH L A TI TUBES. [XI. 

every evening, the salt-water bay in wliich the schooner lay 
was veneered over with a pellicle of ice one eighth of aa 
inch in thickness, and so elastic, that even when the sea 
beneath was considerably agitated, its surface remained 
unbroken, the smooth, round waves taking the appearance 
of billows of oil. If such is the effect produced by the 
slightest modification of the sun's power, in the month of 
August, — you can imagine what must be the result of his 
total disappearance beneath the horizon. The winter is, 
in fact, unendurable. Even in the height of summer, the 
moisture inherent in the atmosphere is often frozen into 
innumerable particles, so minute as to assume the appear- 
ance of an impalpable mist. Occasionally persons have 
wintered on the island, but unless the greatest precautions 
have been taken for their preservation, the consequences 
have been almost invariably fatal. About the same period 
as when the party of Dutch sailors were left at Jan Mayen, 
a similar experiment was tried in Spitzbergen. At the 
former place it was scurvy, rather than cold, which 
destroyed the poor wretches left there to fight it out with 
winter ; at Spitzbergen, as well as could be gathered from 
their journal, it appeared that they had perished from the 
intolerable severity of the climate, — and the contorted at- 
titudes in which their bodies were found lying, too plainly 
indicated the amount of agony they had suffered. No de- 
scription can give an adequate idea of the intense rigor 
of the six months' winter in this part of the world. Stones 
crack with the noise of thunder j in a crowded hut the 
breath of its occupants will fall in flakes of snow ; wine 
and spirits turn to ice ; the snow burns like caustic \ if iron 
touches the flesh, it brings the skin away with it ; the soles 
of your stockings may be burnt off your feet, before you 
feel the slightest warmth from the fire ; linen taken out of 
boiling water, instantly stiffens to the consistency of a 
wooden board ; and heated stones will not prevent the 



XL] PTARMIGAN, 



211 



sheets of the bed from freezing. If these are the effects 
of the cHmate within an air tight, fire-warmed, crowded 
hut — what must they be among tlie dark, storm-laslied 
mountain-pealcs outside ? 

It was now time to tliink of going south again ; we had 
spent many more days on the voyage to Spitzbergen than 
I had expected, and I was continually haunted by the dread 
of your becoming anxious at not hearing from us. It was a 
great disappointment to be obliged to return without having 
got any deer ; but your peace of mind was of more conse- 
quence to me than a ship-load of horns ; and accordingly we 
decided on not remaining more than another day ni our 
present berth, leaving it still an open question whether we 
should not run up to Magdalena Bay, if the weather proved 
very inviting, the last thing before quitting for ever the 
Spitzbergen shores. 

We had killed nothing as yet, except a few eider ducks, 
and one or two ice-birds — the most ";raceful winsred 
creatures I have ever seen, with immensely long pinions, 
and plumage of spotless white. Although enormous seals 
from time to time used to lift their wise, grave faces above 
the water, with the dignity of sea-gods, none of us had any 
great inclination to slay such rational human-looking 
creatures j and — with the exception of these and a white 
fish, a species of whale — no other living thing had been 
visible. On the very morning, however, of the day settled 
for our departure, Fitz came down from a solitary expedi- 
'■'on up a hill with the news of his having seen some ptar- 
migan. Having taken a rifle with him instead of a gun, 
he had not been able to shoot more than one, which he 
had brought back in triumph as proof of the authenticity of 
his report ; but the extreme juvenility of his victim hardly 
permitted us to identify the species ; the hole made by 
the bullet being about the same size as the bird. Never- 
theless, the slightest prospect of obtaining a supply of fresh 



2 12 LETTERS FROM HIGH LA TI TUBES. [XI. 

meat was enough to reconcile us to any amount of exer- 
tion ; therefore, on the strength of the jDinch of feathers 
which Fitz kept gravely assuring us was the game he had 
bagged, we seized our guns — I took a rifle in case of a pos- 
sible bear — and set our faces toward the hill. After a good 
hour's pull we reached the shoulder which Fitz had indi- 
cated as the scene of his exploit, but a patch of snow was 
the only thing visible. Suddenly I saw Sigurdr, who was 
remarkably sharp-sighted, run rapidly in the direction of 
the snow, and bringing his gun up to his shoulder, point it 
— as well as I could distinguish — at his own toes. When 
the smoke of the shot had cleared away, I fully expected 
to see the Icelander prostrate ; but he was already reload- 
ing with the greatest expedition. Determined to prevent 
the repetition of so dreadful an attemjDt at self-destruction, 
I rushed to the spot. Guess then my relief when the 
bloody body of a ptarmigan — driven by so ponit blank a 
discharge a couple of feet into the snow — was triumphantly 
dragged forth by instalments from the sepulchre which it 
had received contemporaneously with its death wound, and 
thus happily accounted for Sigurdr's extraordinary proceed- 
ing. At the same moment I perceived two or thee dozen 
other birds, brothers and sisters of the defunct, calmly 
strutting about under our very noses. By this time Sigurdr 
had reloaded, Fitz had also come up, and a regular massa- 
cre began. Retiring to a distance — for it was the case of 
Mahomet and the mountain reversed — the two sportsmen 
opened fire upon the innocent community, and in a few 
seconds sixteen corpses strewed the ground. 

Scarcely had they finished off the last survivor of this 
Niobean family, when we were startled by the distant re- 
port of a volley of musketry, fired in the direction of the 
schooner. I could not conceive what had happened. Had 
a mutiny taken place 1 Was Mr. Wyse re-enacting, with a 
less docile ship's company, the pistol scene on board the 



XL] KILLING A POLAR BEAR. 213 

Glasgow steamer ? Again resounded the rattle of the firing. 
At all events, there was no time to be lost in getting back ; 
so, tying up the birds in three bundles, we flung ourselves 
down into the gully by which we had ascended, and leap- 
ing on from stone to stone, to the infinite danger of our 
limbs and necks, rolled rather than ran down the hill. On 
rounding the lower wall of the curve which hitherto had 
hid what was passing from our eyes, the first I observed was 
Wilson breasting up the hill, evidently in a state of the 
greatest agitation. As soon as he thought himself within 
earshot, he stopped dead short, and, making a speaking- 
trumpet with his hands, shrieked, rather than shouted, " If 
you please, my Lord ! " — (as I have already said, Wilson 
never forgot les convena7ices) — " If you please, my Lord, 
there's a b-e-a-a-a-a-r ! " prolonging the last word into a 
polysyllable of fearful import. Concluding by the enthu- 
siasm he was exhibiting, that the animal in question was at 
his heels, — hidden from us probably by the inequality of 
the ground, — I cocked my rifle, and prepared to roll him 
over the moment he should appear in sight. But what was 
my disappointment, when on looking towards the schooner, 
my eye caught sight of our three boats fastened in a row, 
and towing behind them a white floating object, which my 
glass only too surely resolved the next minute into the 
dead bear ! 

On descending to the shore, I learned the whole story. 

As Mr. Wyse was pacing the deck, his attention was 
suddenly attracted by a white speck in the water, swim- 
ming across from Prince Charles' Foreland, — the long 
island which lies over against English Bay. When first 
observed, the creature, whatever it might be, was about a 
mile and a half off, — the width of the channel between the 
island and the main being about five miles. Some said it 
was a bird, others a whale, and the cook suggested a mer- 
maid. When the fact was ascertained that it was a bona 



2 14 LE TTERS FRO M HIGH LA TI TUBES. [XI. 

fide bear, a gun was fired as a signal for us to return ; but 
it was evident that unless at once intercepted. Bruin would 
get ashore. Mr. Wyse, therefore, very properly determined 
to make sure of him. This was a matter of no difficulty ; 
the poor beast showed very little fight. His first impulse 
was to swim away from the boat ; and even after he had 
been wounded, he only turned round once or twice upon 
his pursuers. The honor of having given him his death 
wound, rests between the steward and Mr. Wyse ; both con- 
tend for it. The evidence is conflicting, as at least half-a- 
dozen mortal wounds were found in the animal's body ; 
each may be considered to have had a share in his death. 
Mr. Grant rests his claim principally upon the fact of his 
having put two bullets in my new rifle — which must have 
greatly improved the bore of that instrument. On the 
strength of this precaution, he now wears as an ornament 
about his person one of the bullets extracted from the giz- 
zard of our prize. 

All this time, Wilson was at the tent, busily occupied in 
taking photographs. As soon as the bear was observed, a 
signal was made to him from the ship, to warn him of the 
visitor he might shortly expect on shore. Naturally con- 
cluding that the bear would in all piobability make for the 
tent as soon as he reached land, it became a subject of 
consideration with him what course he should pursue. 
Weapons he had none, unless the chemicals he was using 
might be so regarded. Should he try the influence of chlo- 
roform on his enemy ; or launch the whole photographic 
apparatus at his grizzly head, and take to his heels ? 
Thought is rapid, but the bear's progress seemed equally 
expeditious : it was necessary to arrive at some speedy 
conclusion. To fly — was to desert his post and leave the 
camp in possession of the spoiler ; life and honor were 
equally dear to him. Suddenly a bright idea struck him. 

At the time the goat had been disembarked to take her 



XI.] WILSON AND THE BEAR. 215 

pleasure on ten-a Jinna, our crow's-nest barrel had been 
landed with her. At this moment it was standing unoccu- 
pied by the side of the tent. By creeping into it, and turn- 
ing its mouth downward on the ground, Wilson perceived 
that he should convert it into a tower of strength for him- 
self against the enemy, while its legitimate occupant, be- 
coming at once a victim to the bear's voracity, would prob- 
ably prevent the monster from investigating too curiously 
its contents. It was quite a pity that the interposition of 
the boats prevented his jDutting this ingenious plan into 
execution. He had been regularly do7ie out of a situation, 
in which the most poignant agony of mind and dreary an- 
ticipations would have been absolutely required of him. 
He pictured the scene to himself ; he lying fermenting in 
the barrel, like a curious vintage ; the bear snuffing queru- 
lously round it, perhaps cracking it like a cocoa-nut, or ex- 
tracting him like a periwinkle ! Of these chances he had 
been deprived by the interference of the crew. Friends 
are often injudiciously meddling. 

Although I felt a little vexation that one of us should 
not have had the honor of slaying the bear in single com- 
bat, which would certainly have been for the benefit of his 
skin, the unexpected luck of having got one at all, made 
us quite forget our personal disappointment. As for my 
people, they were beside themselves with delight. To have 
killed a polar bear was a great thing, but to eat him would 
be a greater. If artistically dealt with, his carcase would 
probably cut up into a supply of fresh meat for many days. 
One of the hands happened to be a butcher. Whenever I 
wanted anything a little out of the way to be done on 
board, I was sure to find that it happened to be the spe- 
cialite of some one of the ship's company. In the course 
of a few hours, the late bear was converted into a row of 
the most tempting morsels of beef, hung about the rigging. 
Instead of in flags, the ship was dressed in joints. In the 



2i6 LETTERS FROM HIGH LATITUDES. [XI. 

mean time it so happened that the fox, having stolen a piece 
of offal, was in a few minutes afterwards seized with con- 
vulsions. I had already given orders that the bear's liver 
should be thrown overboard, as being, if not poisonous, at 
all events very unwholesome. The seizure of the fox, 
coupled with this injunction, brought about a complete rev- 
olution in the men's minds, with regard to the delicacies 
they had been so daintily preparing for themselves. Si- 
lently, one by one, the pieces were untied and thrown into 
the sea ; I do not think a mouthful of bear was eaten on 
board the " Foam.^'' I never heard whether it was in con- 
sequence of any prognostics of Wilson's that this act of 
self-denial was put into practice. I observed, however, 
that for some days after the slaughter and dismemjberment 
of the bear, my ship's company presented an unaccountably 
sleek appearance. As for the steward, his head and whis- 
kers seemed carved out of black marble; a varnished boot 
would not have looked half so bright ; I could have seen 
to shave myself in his black hair. I conclude, therefore, 
that the ingenious cook must, at all events, have succeeded 
in manufacturing a supply of genuine bear's grease, of 
which they had largely availed themselves. 

The bagging of the bear had so gloriously crowned our 
visit to Spitzbergen, that our disappointment about the 
deer was no longer thought of; it was therefore with light 
hearts, and most complete satisfaction, that we prepared 
for departure. 

Maid Marian had already carved on a flat stone an in- 
scription, in Roman letters, recording the visit of the 
" Foam " to English Bay ; and a cairn having been erected 
to receive it, the tablet was solemnly lifted to its resting- 
place. Underneath I placed a tin box, containing a mem- 
orandum similar to that left at Jan Mayen, as well as a 
printed dinner invitation from Lady , which I hap- 
pened to have on board. Having planted a boat's flag be- 



XL] ICE ALL ROUND. 217 

side the rude monument, and brought on board with us a 
load of drift-wood to serve hereafter as Christmas yule- 
logs, we bade an eternal adieu to the silent hills around 
us ; and weighing anchor, stood out to sea. For some 
hours a lack of wind still left us hanging about the shore, 
in the midst of a grave society of seals ; but soon after, a 
gentle breeze sprang up in the south, and about three 
o'clock on Friday, the nth of August, we again found 
ourselves spanking along before a six-knot breeze, over 
the pale green sea. 

In considering the course on which I should take the 
vessel home, it appeared to me that in all probability we 
should have been much less pestered by the ice on our way 
to Spitzbergen, if, instead of hugging the easterly ice, we 
had kept more away to the westward ; I determined there- 
fore — as soon as we got clear of the land — to stand right 
over to the Greenland shore, on a due west course, and not 
to attempt to make any southing, until we should have 
struck the Greenland ice. The length of our tether in that 
direction being ascertained, we could then judge of the 
width of the channel down which we were to beat, for it 
was still blowing pretty fresh from the southward. 

Up to the evening of the day on which we quitted Eng- 
lish Bay, the weather had been most beautiful ; calm, sun- 
shiny, dry, and pleasant. Within a few hours of our get- 
ting under weigh, a great change had taken place, and by 
midnight it had become as foggy and disagreeable as ever. 
The sea was pretty clear. During the few days we had 
been on shore, the northerly current had brushed away the 
great angular field of ice whi^h had lain off the shore, in a 
north-west direction ; so that instead of being obliged to 
run up very nearly to the 80th parallel, in order to round 
it, we were enabled to sail to the westward at once. Dur- 
ing the course of the night, we came upon one or two wan- 
dering patches of drift ice, but so loosely packed that we 



2 18 LETTERS FROM HIGH LA TI TUBES. [XI. 

had no difficulty in pushing through them. About foul 
o'clock in the morning, a long line of close ice was re- 
ported right a head, stretching south as far as the eye could 
reach. We had come about eighty miles since leaving 
Spitzbergen. The usual boundary of the Greenland ice in 
summer runs, according to Scoresby, along the second 
parallel of west longitude. This we had already crossed ; 
so that it was to be presumed the barricade we saw before 
us was a frontier of the fixed ice. In accordance, there- 
fore, with my predetermined plan, we now began working 
to the southward, and the result fully justified my expecta- 
tions. 

The sea became comparatively clear, as far as could be 
seen from the deck of the vessel ; although small vagrant 
patches of ice that we came up with occasionally — as well 
as the temperature of the air and the sea — continued to 
indicate the proximity of larger bodies on either side of us. 

It was a curious sensation with which we had gradually 
learnt to contemplate this inseparable companion ; it had 
become a part of our daily existence, an element, a thing 
without which the general aspect of the universe would be 
irregular and incomplete. It was the first thing we thought 
of in the morning, the last thing we spoke of at night. It 
glittered and grinned maliciously at us in the sunshine ; it 
winked mysteriously through the stifling fog ; it stretched 
itself like a prostrate giant, with huge, portentous shoulders 
and shadowy limbs^ right across our course ; or danced 
gleefully in broken groups in the little schooner's wake. 
There was no getting rid of it, or forgetting it ; and if at 
night we sometimes returned in dreams to the green sum- 
mer world — to the fervent harvest fields of England, and 
heard " the murmurs of innumerous bees," or the song of 
larks on thymy uplands — thump ! bump ! splash ! gra-a-te ! 
— came the sudden reminder of our friend on the starboard 
bow ; and then sometimes a scurry on deck, and a general 



XL] A SACRIFICE TO RUIN. 219 

" scrimmage " of the whole society, in endeavors to pre- 
vent more serious collisions. Moreover, I could not say, 
with your old French friend, that " Familiarity breeds de- 
spise." The more we saw of it, the less we liked it ; its 
cold presence sent a chilly sense of discouragement to the 
heart, and I had daily to struggle with an ardent desire to 
throw a boot at Wilson's head, every time his sepulchral 
voice announced the " Ice all around .f'' 

It was not until the 14th of August, five days after 
quitting Spitzbergen, that we lost sight of it altogether. 
From that moment the temperature of the sea steadily 
rose, and we felt that we were sailing back again into the 
pleasant summer. 

A sad event which occurred soon after, in some measure 
marred our enjoyment of the change. Ever since she had 
left Hammerfest, it had become too evident that a sea- 
going life did not agree with the goat. Even the run on 
shore at Spitzbergen had not sufficed to repair her shat- 
tered constitution, and the bad weather we had had ever 
since completed its ruin. It was certain that the butcher 
was the only doctor who could now cure her. In spite, 
therefore, of the distress it occasioned Maid Marian, I was 
compelled to issue orders for her execution. Sigurdr was 
the only person who regarded the tragical event with in- 
difference, nay, almost with delight. Ever since we had 
commenced sailing in a southerly direction, we had been 
obliged to beat ; but during the last four-and-twenty hours 
the wind kept dodging us every time we tacked, as a nerv- 
ous pedestrian sets to you sometimes on a narrow trottoir. 
This spell of ill-luck the Icelander heathenishly thought 
would only be removed by a sacrifice to Rhin, the goddess 
of the sea, in which light he trusted she would look upon 
the goat's body when it came to be thrown overboard. 

Whether the change which followed upon the consign- 
ment of her remains to the deep really resulted from such 



220 LETTERS FROM HIGH LATITUDES. [XI. 

an influence, I am not prepared to say. The weather im- 
mediately thereafter certainly did change. First the wind 
dropped altogether ; but though the calm lasted several 
hours, the sea strangely enough appeared to become all the 
rougher, tossing and tumbling restlessly ?// a7id down — (not 
over and over as in a gale) — like a sick man on a fever 
bed j the impulse to the waves seeming to proceed from all 
four quarters of the world at once. Then like jurymen 
with a verdict of death upon their lips, the heavy, ominous 
clouds slowly passed into the north-west. 

A dead stillness followed — a breathless pause — until, at 
some mysterious signal, the solemn voice of the storm 
hurtled over the deep. Luckily we were quite ready for it ; 
the gale came from the right quarter, and the fiercer it blew 
the better. For the next three days and three nights it was 
a scurry over the sea such as I never had before ; nine or 
ten knots an hour was the very least we ever went, and 240 
miles was the average distance we made every four-and 
twenty hours. 

Anything grander and more exciting than the sight of 
the sea under these circumstances you cannot imagine. The 
vessel herself remains very steady; when you are below 3'ou 
scarcely know you are not in port. But on raising your head 
above the companion the first sight which meets your eye is 
an upright wall of black water, towering, you hardly know 
how many feet, into the air over the stern. Like a lion 
walking on its hind legs, it comes straight at you, roaring 
and shaking its white mane with fury — it overtakes the ves- 
sel — the upright shiny face curves inwards — the white mane 
seems to hang above your very head ; but ere it topples 
over, the nimble little ship has already slipped from under- 
neath. You hear the disappointed jaws of the sea-monster 
snap angrily together, — the schooner disdainfully kicks up 
her heel — and raging and bubbling up on either side the 
quarter, the unpausing wave sweeps on, and you see its 



XL] WILSOIV ON THE MAELSTROM. 221 

round back far ahead, gradually swelling upwards, as it 
gathers strength and volume for a new effort. 

We had now got considerably to the southward of North 
Cape. We had already seen several ships, and you would 
hardly imagine with what childish delight my people hailed 
these symptoms of having again reached more " Christian 
latitudes," as they called them 

I had always intended, ever since my conversation with 
Mr. T. about the Maelstrom, to have called in at Loffoden 
Islands on our way south, and ascertain for myself the real 
truth about this famous vortex. To have blotted such a 
bugbear out of the map of Europe, if its existence really 
was a myth, would at all events have rendered our cruise 
not altogether fruitless. But, since leaving Spitzbergen, we 
had never once seen the sun, and to attempt to make so 
dangerous a coast in a gale of wind and a thick mist, with 
no more certain knowledge of the ship's position than our 
dead reckoning afforded, was out of the question ; so about 
one o'clock in the morning, the weather giving no signs of im- 
provement, the course I had shaped in the direction of the 
island was altered, and we stood away again to the south- 
ward. This manoeuvre was not unobserved by Wilson, but 
he mistook its meaning. Having, I suppose, overheard us 
talking at dinner about the Maelstrom, he now concluded the 
supreme hour had arrived. He did not exactly comprehend 
the terms we used, but had gathered that the spot was one 
fraught with danger. Concluding from the change made 
in the vessel's course that we were proceeding towards 
the dreadful locality, he gave himself up to despair, and lay 
tossing in his hammock in sleepless anxiety. At last the 
load of his forebodings was greater than he could bear ; he 
gets up, steals into the Doctor's cabin, wakes him up, and 
standing over him — as the messenger of ill tidings once 
stood over Priam — whispers, ^^ Sir T' "What is it?" says 
Fitz, thinking, perhaps, some one was ill. " Do you know 



2 22 LETTERS FROM HIGH LATITUDES. [XI. 

where we are going?" "Why, to Throndhjem," answered 
Fitz. " We were going to Throndhjem," rejoins Wilson, 
" but we ain't "now — the vessel's course was altered two 
hours ago. Oh, Sir! we are going to Whirlpool — to Whirl-7'l- 
pooo-l I Sir ! " in a quaver of consternation, — and so glides 
back to bed like a phantom, leaving the Doctor utterly un- 
able to divine the occasion of his visit. 

The whole of the next day the gale continued. We had 
now sailed back into night ; it became therefore a question 
how far it would be advisable to carry on during the ensuing 
hours of darkness, considering how uncertain we were as 
to our real position. As I think I have already described 
to you, the west coast of Norway is very dangerous ; a con- 
tniuous sheet of sunken rocks lies out along its entire edge 
for eight or ten miles to sea. There are no lighthouses to 
warn the mariner off ; and if we were wrong in our reckon-^ 
ing, as v/e might very well be, it was possible we might 
stumble on the land sooner than we expected. I knew the 
proper course would be to lie to quietly until we could take 
an observation ; but time was so valuable, and I was so 
fearful you would be getting anxious. The night was pretty 
clear. High mountains, such as we were expecting to 
make, would be seen, even at night, several miles off. Ac- 
cording to our log we were still 150 miles off the land, and, 
however inaccurate our calculation might be, the error 
could not be of such magnitude as that amounted to. To 
throw away so fair a wind seemed such a pity, especially as 
it might be days before the sun appeared ; we had already 
been at sea about a fortnight without a sight of him, and 
his appearance at all during the summer is not an act de 
rigiieur in this part of the world ; we might spend yet 
another fortnight in lying to, and then after all have to poke 
our way blindfold to the coast ; at all events it would-be 
soon enough to lie to the next night. Such were the con- 
siderations, which — after an anxious consultation with Mr. 



XL] ''BREAKERS AHEAD T' IIT, 

Wyse in the cabin, and mu6h fingering of the charts, — 
determined me to carry on during the night. 

Nevertheless, I confess I was very uneasy. Though 
I went to bed and fell asleep — for at sea nothing prevents 
that process — my slumbers were constantly agitated by the 
most vivid dreams that I ever remember to have had. 
Dreams of an arrival in England, and your coming down to 
meet us, and all the pleasure I had in recounting our adven- 
tures to you ; then suddenly your face seemed to fade away 
beneath a veil of angry grey surge that broke over low, 
sharp-pointed rocks ; and the next moment there resounded 
over the ship that cry which has been the preface to so many 
a disaster — the ring of which, none who have ever heard it 
are likely to forget — " Breakers ahead ! " 

In a moment I was on deck, dressed — for it is always 
best to dress, — and there, sure enough, right ahead, about 
a mile and a half off, through the mist, which had come on 
very thick, I could distinguish the upward shooting fluff of 
seas shattering against rocks. No land was to be seen, 
but the line of breakers every instant became more evident ; 
at the pace we were going, in seven or eight minutes we 
should be upon them. Now, thought I to myself, we shall 
see whether a stout heart beats beneath the silk tartan ! 
The result covered that brilliant garment with glory and 
salt water. To tack was impossible, we could only wear, 
— and to wear m such a sea was no very pleasant operation. 
But the little ship seemed to know what she was about, as 
well as any of us : up went the helm, round came the 
schooner into the trough of the sea, — high over her quarter 
toppled an enormous sea, built up of I know not how many 
tons of water, and hung over the deck j — by some unac- 
countable wriggle, an instant ere it thundered down,she had 
twisted her stern on one side, and the waves passed under- 
neath. In another minute her head was to the sea, the 
mainsail was eased over, and all danger was past. 



2 24 LETTERS FROM HIGH LA TI TUBES. [XI. 

What was now to be done ? That the land we had seen 
was the coast of Norway I could not believe. Wrong as 
our dead reckoning evidently was, it could not be so wrong 
as that. Yet only one other supposition was possible, viz., 
that we had not come so far south as we imagined, and that 
we had stumbled upon Roost — a little rocky island that lies 
about twenty miles to the southward of the Loffoden 
Islands. Whether this conjecture was correct or not, did 
not much matter ; to go straight away to sea, and lie to 
until we could get an observation, was the only thing to be 
done. Away then we went, struggling against a tremen- 
dous sea for a good nine hours, until we judged ourselves to 
be seventy or eighty miles from where we had sighted the 
breakers, — when we lay to, not in the best of tempers. The 
next morning, not only was it blowing as hard as ever, but 
all chance of getting a sight that day seemed also out of 
the question. I could have eaten my head with impatience. 
However, as it is best never to throw a chance away, about 
half-past eleven o'clock, though the sky resembled an even 
sheet of lead, I got my sextant ready, and told Mr. Wyse 
to do the same. 

Now, out of tenderness for your feminine ignorance I 
must state, that in order to take an observation, it is neces- 
sary to get a sight of the sun at a particular moment of the 
day : this moment is noon. When, therefore, twelve o'clock 
came, and one could not so much as guess in what quarter 
of the heavens he might be \ym^ perdu^ you may suppose I 
almost despaired. Ten minutes passed. It was evident 
we were doomed to remain, kicking our heels for another 
four-and-twenty hours where we were. No ! — yes ! — no ! 
By Phcebus ! there he is ! A faint spongy spot of brightness 
gleamed through the grey roof overhead. The indistinct 
outline grew a little clearer ; one-half of him, though still 
behind a cloud, hardened into a sharp edge. Up went the 
sextant. " 52.43 ! " (or whatever it was) I shouted to Mr. 



XL] DANGEROUS NA VIGA TIO N. 227 

Wyse. "52.41, my Lord ! " cried he, in return ; there was 
only the discrepancy of a mile between us. We had got 
the altitude ; the sun might go to bed for good and all now, 
we did not care, — we knew our position to an inch. There 
had been an error of something like forty miles in our dead 
reckoning, in consequence — as I afterwards found — of a 
current that sets to the northward, along the west coast of 
Norway, with a velocity varying from one to three miles an 
hour. The island upon which we had so nearly run was 
Roost. We were still nearly 200 miles from our port. 
"Turn the hands up ! Make sail ! " and away we went 
again in the same course as before, at the rate of ten knots 
an hour. 

" The girls at home have got hold of the tow-rope, I think, 
my Lord," said Mr. Wyse, as we bounded along over the 
thundering seas. 

By three o'clock next day we were up with Vigten ; and 
now a very nasty piece of navigation began. In order to 
make the northern entrance of the Throndhjem Fiord, you 
have first to find your way into what is called the Frch 
Havet, — a kind of oblong basin about sixteen miles long, 
formed by a ledge of low rocks running parallel with the 
mainland, at a distance of ten miles to seaward. Though 
the space between this outer boundary and the coast is so 
wide, in consequence of the network of sunken rocks which 
stuffs it up, the passage by which a vessel can enter is very 
narrow, and the only landmark to enable you to find the 
channel is the head one of the string of outer islets. As 
this rock is about the size of a dining-table, perfectly flat, 
and rising only a few feet above the level of the sea, to 
attempt to make it is like looking for a needle in a bottle 
of hay. It was already beginning to grow very late and 
dark by the time w^e had come up with the spot where 
it ought to have been, but not a vestige of such a thing 
had turned up. Should we not sight it in a quarter of 



228 LE TTERS FROM HIGH LA TITUDES. [XI. 

an hour, we must go to sea again, and lie to for the night, 
— a very unpleasant alternative for any one so impatient 
as I was to reach a port. Just as I was going to give the 
order, Fitz — who was certainly the Lynceus of the ship's 
company — espied its black back just peeping up above the 
tumbling water on our starboard bow. We had hit it off to 
a yard ! 

In another half-hour we were stealing down in quiet 
water towards the entrance of the fiord. All this time not 
a rag of a pilot had appeared ; and it was without any such 
functionary that the schooner swept up next morning be- 
tween the wooded, grain-laden slopes of the beautiful loch, 
to Throndhjem — the capital of the ancient sea-kings of 
Norway. 



LETTER XII. 



THRONDHJEM HARALD HAARFAGER — KING HACON's LAST 

BATTLE — OLAF TRYGGVESSON THE " LONG SERPENT " 

—ST. OLAVE THORMOD THE SCALD— THE JARL OF 

LADE THE CATHEDRAL HARALD HARDRADA THE 

BATTLE OF STANFORD BRIDGE — A NORSE BALL ODIN 

^AND HIS PALADINS. 

Off MUNKHOLM, Aug. 27, 1856. 

Throndhjem (pronounced Tronyem) looked very pretty 
and picturesque, with its red-roofed wooden houses spark- 
ling in the sunshine, its many windows filled with flowers, 
its bright fiord covered with vessels gayly dressed in flags, 
in honor of the Crown Prince's first visit to the ancient 
capital of the Norwegian realm. Tall, pretentious ware- 
houses crowded down to the water's edge, like bullies at a 
public show elbowing to the foremost rank ; orderly streets 
stretched in quiet rows at right angles with each other, and 
pretty villas with green cinctures sloped away towards 
the hills. In the midst rose the king's palace, the largest 
wooden edifice in Europe ; while the old grey Cathedral — 
stately and grand in spite of the slow destruction of the ele- 
ments, the mutilations of man's hands, or his yet more de- 
grading rough-cast and stucco reparations — still towered 
above the perishable wooden buildings at his feet, with the 
solemn pride which befits the shrine of a royal saint. 

I cannot tell you with what eagerness I drank in all the 
features of this lovely scene ; at least, such features as 



230 LETTERS FROM HIGH LA TITUDES. [XII. 

Time can hardly alter — the glancing river, from whence 
the city's ancient name of Nidaros, or " mouth of the Nid," 
is derived, — the rocky island of Munkholm, the bluff of 
of Lade', — the land-locked fiord and its pleasant hills, 
beyond whose grey stony ridges I knew must lie the fatal 
battle-field of Sticklestad. Every spot to me was full of 
interest, — but an interest noways connected with the neat 
green villas, the rectangular streets, and the obtrusive ware- 
houses. These signs of a modern humdrum prosperity 
seemed to melt away before my eyes as I gazed from the 
schooner's deck, and the accessories of an elder time came 
to furnish the landscape ; — the clumsy merchantmen lazily 
swaying with the tide, darkened into armed galleys with 
their rows of glittering shields, — the snug, bourgeois-look- 
ing town shrank into the quaint proportions of the huddled 
ancient Nidaros, — and the old marauding days, with their 
shadowy line of grand old pirate kings, rose up with wel- 
come vividness before my mind. 

What picture shall I try to conjure from the past, to 
live in your fancy, as it does in mine ? 

Let the setting be these very hills, — flooded by this 
same cold, steely sunshine. In the midst stands a stalwart 
form, in quaint but regal attire. Hot blood deepens the 
color of his sun-bronzed cheek ; an iron purpose gleams in 
his earnest eyes, like the flash of a drawn sword ; a circlet 
of gold binds the massive brow, and from beneath it stream 
to blow his waist thick masses of hair, of that dusky red 
which glows like the heart of a furnace in the sunlight, but 
deepens earthbrown in the shadow. By his side stands a 
fair woman ; her demure and heavy-lidded eyes are sel- 
dom lifted from the earth, which yet they seem to scorn ; 
but the king's eyes rest on her, and many looks are turned 
towards him. A multitude is present, moved by one great 
event, swayed by a thousand passions ; — some with garru- 
lous throats full of base adulation and an unworthy joy ; 



XII.] HARALD HAARFAGER. 231 

— some pale, self-scorning, with averted looks^ and hands 
that twitch instinctively at their idle daggers, then drop 
hopeless, harmless at their sides. 

The king is Harald Haarfager, "of the fair hair;" the 
woman is proud and beautiful Gyda, whose former scorn 
for him, in the days when he was nothing but the petty 
chief of a few barren mountains, provoked that strange wild 
vow of his, " That he would never clip or comb his locks 
till he could woo her as sole king of Norway." 

Among the crowd are those who have bartered, for 
ease, and wealth, and empty titles born of the king's breath 
— their ancient Udal rights, their Bonder privileges; 
others have sunk their proud hearts to bear the yoke of 
the stronger hand, yet gaze with yearning looks on the 
misty horizon that opens between the hills. A dark speck 
mars that shadowy line. Thought follows across the space. 
It is a ship. Its sides are long, and black, and low ; but 
high in front rises the prow, fashioned into the semblance 
of a gigantic golden dragon, against whose gleaming breast 
the divided waters angrily flash and gurgle. Along the 
top sides of the deck are hung a row of shining shields, in 
alternate breadths of red and white, like the variegated 
scales of a sea-monster, whilst its glided tail curls aft over 
the head of the steersman. From either flank projects a 
bank of some thirty oars, that look, as they smite the ocean 
with even beat, like the legs on which the reptile crawls 
over its surface. One stately mast of pine serves to carry 
a square sail made of cloth, briUiant with stripes of red, 
white, and blue. 

And who are they who navigate this strange, barbaric 
vessel ? — why leave they the sheltering fiords of their be- 
loved Norway ? They are the noblest hearts of that noble 
land — freemen, who value freedom, — who have abandoned 
all rather than call Harald master, and now seek a new 
home even among the desolate crags of Iceland, rather 
than submit to the tyranny of a usurper. 



232 LE TTERS FROM HIGH LA TI TUBES. [XI I. 

** Norb— 0bcr (^ub ! tuenn nur bie (©^elen gluben ! '' 

Another picture, and a sadder story ; but the scene is 
now a wide dun moor, on the slope of a seaward hill ; the 
autumn evening is closing in, but a shadow darker than 
that of evening broods over the desolate plain, — the shadow 
of Death. Groups of armed men, with stern sorrow in their 
looks, are standing round a rude couch, hastily formed of 
fir branches. An old man lies there — dying. His ear is 
dulled even to the shout of victory; the mists of an endless 
night are gathering in his eyes ; but there is passion yet in 
the quivering lip, and triumph on the high-resolved brow ; 
and the gesture of his hand has kingly power still. Let 
me tell his saga, like the bards of that old time. 

KING HACON'S LAST BATTLE. 

I, 

All was over : day was ending 

As the foeman turned and fled. 

Gloomy red 

Glowed the angry sun descendmg ; 

While round Hacon's dying bed, 

Tears and songs of triumph blending. 

Told how fast the conqueror bled. 

XL 

" Raise me," said the King. We raised him 

Not to ease his desperate pain ; 

That were vain ! 

" Strong our foe was — but we faced him : 

Show me that red field again." 

Then, with reverent hands, we placed him 

High above the bloody plain. 

IIL 

Silent gazed he ; mute we waited, 
Kneeling round — a faithful few, 
Staunch and true, — 



XII.] KING HACON. 233 

Whilst above, with thunder freighted, 
Wild the boisterous north wind blew, 
And the carrion-bird, unsated, 
On slant wing around us flew. 

IV. 

Sudden, on our startled hearing, 

Came the low-breathed, stern command — 

" Lo ! ye stand ? 

Linger not, the night is nearing ; 

Bear me downwards to the strand, 

Where my ships are idly steering 

Off and on, in sight of land." 

V. 

Every whispered word obeying. 
Swift we bore him down the steep, 
O'er the deep, 

Up the tall ship's side, low swaying 
To the storm-wind's powerful sweep, 
And — his dead companions laying 
Round him, — we had time to weep. 

VI. 

But the King said — " Peace ! bring hither 

Spoil and weapons — battle-strown, 

Make no moan ; 

Leave me and my dead together, 

Light my torch, and then — begone." 

But we murmured, each to other, 

" Can we leave him thus alone ? " 

VII. 

Angrily the King replieth ; 
Flash the awful eyes again, 
With disdain — 
" Call him not alone who lieth 
Low amidst such noble slain ; 
Call him not alone who dieth 
Side by side with gallant men." 



234 LE TTERS FROM HIGH LA TITUDES. [XII. 

VIII. 

Slowly, sadly, we departed : 
Reached again that desolate shore, 
Nevermore 

Trod by him, the brave true-hearted- 
Dying in that dark ship's core 1 
Sadder keel from land ne'er parted, 
Nobler freight none ever bore I 

IX. 

There we lingered, seaward gazing, 
Watching o'er that living tomb, 
Through the gloom — 
Gloom ! which awful light is chasing — 
Blood-red flames the surge illume ! 
Lo ! King Hacon's ship is blazing ; 
'Tis the hero's self-sought doom. 

X. 

Right before the wild wind driving, 
Madly plunging — stung by fire — 
No help nigh her — 
Lo ! the ship has ceased her striving ! 
Mount the red flames higher — higher ! 
Till — on ocean's verge arriving. 
Sudden sinks the Viking's pyre — 
Hacon's gone 1 

Let me call one more heroic phantom from Norway's 
romantic past. 

A kindly presence, stately and tall ; his shield held high 
above his head — a broken sword in his right hand. Olaf 
Tryggvesson ! Founder of Nidaros ; — that cold Northern 
Sea has rolled for many centuries above your noble head, 
and yet not chilled the battle heat upon your brow, nor 
staunched the blood that trickles down your iron glove, 
from hidden, untold wounds, which the tender hand of 
Thyri shall never heal ! 



Xll.] THE OLD-WORLD HEROES. 235 

To such ardent souls it is indeed given "to live forever" 
(the for ever of this world); for is it not '• Life " to keep a 
hold on our affections, when their own passions are at rest, 
• — to influence our actions (however indirectly) — when 
action is at an end for them ? Who shall say how much of 
modern heroism may owe its laurels to that first throb of 
fiery sympathy which young hearts feel at the relation of 
deeds such as Olaf Tryggvesson's ? 

The forms of those old Greeks and Romans whom we 
are taught to reverence, may project taller shadows on the 
world's stage ; but though the scene be narrow here, and 
light be wanting, the interest is not less intense, nor are 
the passions less awful that inspired these ruder dramas. 

There is an individuality in the Icelandic historian's 
description of King Olaf that wins one's interest — -at 
first as in an acquaintance — and rivets it at last as in a 
personal friend. The old Chronicle lingers with such lov- 
ing minuteness over his attaching qualities, his social, gen- 
erous nature, his gayety and "frolicsomeness ;" even his 
finical taste in dress, and his evident proneness to fall too 
hastily in love, have a value in the portrait, as contrasting 
with the gloomy colors in which the story sinks at last. 
The warm, impulsive spirit speaks in every action of his 
life, from the hour when — a young child in exile — he strikes 
his axe into the skull of his foster father's murderer, to the 
last grand scene near Svalderoe. You trace it in his ab- 
sorbing grief for the death of Geyra, the wife of this youth ; 
the sage says, "he had no pleasure in Vinland after it," and 
then naively observes, " he therefore provided himself with 
war-ships, and went a-plundering," one of his first achieve- 
ments being to go and pull down London Bridge. This 
peculiar kind of " distraction " (as the French call it) seems 
to have had the desired effect, as is evident in the romantic 
incident of his second marriage, when the Irish Princess 
Gyda chooses him — apparently an obscure stranger — to be 



236 LETTERS FROM HIGH LATITUDES. [XII. 

her husband, out of a hundred wealthy and well-born aspi- 
rants to her hand. But neither Gyda's love, nor the rude 
splendors of her father's court, can make Olaf forgetful of 
his claims upon the throne of Norway — the inheritance of 
his father ; and when that object of his just ambition is 
attained, and he is proclaimed King by general election of 
the Bonders, as his ancestor Harald Haarfager had been, 
his character deepens in earnestness as the sphere of his 
duties is enlarged. All the energies of his ardent nature 
are put forth in the endeavor to convert his subjects to the 
true Faith. As he himself expresses it, " he would bring it 
to this, — that all Norway should be Christian or die!'^ In 
the same spirit he meets his heretic and rebellious subjects 
at the Thing of Lade, and boldly replies, when they require 
him to sacrifice to the false gods, " If I turn with you to 
offer sacrifice, then shall it be the greatest sacrifice that 
can be made ; I will not offer slaves, nor malefactors to 
your gods, — I will sacrifice men ; — and they shall be the 
noblest men among you ! " It was soon after this that he 
despatched the exemplary Thangbrand to Iceland. 

With a front not less determined does he face his 
country's foes. The king of Sweden, and Svend " of the 
forked beard," king of Denmark, have combined against 
him. With them is joined the Norse jarl, Eric, the son of 
Hacon. Olaf Tryggvesson is sailing homewards with a 
fleet of seventy ships, — himself commanding the famous 
" Lo7tg Serpent,'' the largest ship built in Norway. His 
enemies are lying in wait for him behind the islands. 

Nothing can be more dramatic than the description of 
the sailing of this gallant fleet — (piloted by the treacher- 
ous Earl Sigwald) — within sight of the ambushed Danes 
and Swedes, who watch from their hiding-place the beauti- 
ful procession of hostile vessels, mistaking each in turn for 
the ^^ Long Serpent,'' and as often undeceived by a new and 
yet more stately apparition. She appears at length, her 



XII.] OLAF TRYGGl^ESSON. 237 

dragon prow glittering in the sunshine, all canvas spread, 
her sides bristling with armed men ; " and when they saw 
her, none spoke, — all knew it to be indeed the ' Serpent^' 
— and they went to their ships to. arm for the fight." As 
soon as Olaf and his forces had been enticed into the nar- 
row passage, the united fleets of the three allies pour out 
of the Sound ; his people beg Olaf to hold on his way 
and not risk battle with such a superior, force ; but the 
King replied, high on the quarter-deck where he stood, 
" Strike the sails ! I never fled from battle : let God dis- 
pose of my life, but flight I will never take ? " He then 
orders the war-horns to sound, for all his ships to close up 
to each other. " Then," says Ulf the Red, captain of the 
forecastle, " if the ' Loiig Serpent ' is to lie so much a-head 
of the other vessels, we shall have hot work of it here on 
the forecastle." 

The King replies, " I did not think I had a forecastle 
man afraid^ as well as red^ ^ 

Says Ulf, " Defend thou the quarter-deck, as I shall 
the forecastle." 

The King had a bow in his hands ; he laid an arrow 
on the string, and made as if he aimed at Ulf. 

Ulf said, " Shoot another way. King, where it is more 
needful, — my work is thy gain." 

Then the King asked, " Who is the chief of the force 
right opposite to us ? " He is answered, " Svend of Den- 
mark, with his army." 

Olaf replies, " We are not afraid of these soft Danes ! 
Who are the troops on the right ? " 

They answer, " Olaf of Sweden, and his forces." 

" Better it were," replies the King, " for these Swedes to 
be sitting at home, kilhng their sacrifices, than venturing 

1 There is a play on these two words in the Icelandic, " Raudan oc 
Ragan." 



238 LETTERS FROM HIGH LA TITUDES. [XII. 

under the weapons of the ^ Long Serpent' But who owns 
the large ships on the larboard side of the Danes ? " 

'' That is Jarl Eric, son of Hacon," say they. 

The King says, " He has reason for meeting us ; we 
may expect hard blows from these men \ they are Norse- 
men like ourselves." 

The fierce conflict raged for many hours. It went hard 
with the " soft Danes," and idolatrous Swedes, as Olaf had 
foreseen ; after a short struggle they turn and fly. But 
Jarl Eric in his large ship the " Iron Beard'' is more than 
a match for Olaf's lighter vessels. One by one their decks 
are deluged with blood, their brave defenders swept into 
the sea ; one by one they are cut adrift and sent loose with 
the tide. And now at last the " Iron Beard" lies side by 
side with the ^' Long Serpent^'' and it is indeed "hot work" 
both on forecastle and quarter-deck. 

*' Einar Tambarskelvar, one of the sharpest of bow- 
men, stood by the mast, and shot with his bow," His ar- 
row hits the tiller-end, just over the Earl's head, and buries 
itself up to the shaft in the wood. " Who shot that bolt ? " 
says the Jarl. Another flies between his hand and side, 
and enters the stuffing of the chief's stool. Then said the 
Jarl to a man named Fin, " Shoot that tall archer by the 
mast ! " Fin shoots ; the arrow hits the middle of Einar's 
bow as he is in the act of drawing it, and the bow is split 
in two. 

"What is that," cried King Olaf, "that broke with 
such a noise 1 " 

" Norway, King, from thy hands ! " cried Einar. 

" No ! not so much as that," says the King ; " take my 
bow, and shoot," — flinging the bow to him. 

Einar took the bow, and drew it over the head of the 
arrow. " Too weak, too weak," said he, " for the bow of 
a mighty King ! " and throwing the bow aside, " he took 
sword and buckler, and fought valiantly." 



Xil.] DEATH OF OLAF. 2^9 

But Olaf s hour is come. Many slain lie around him : 
many that have fallen by his hand, more that have fallen 
at his side. The thinned ranks on board the " Iro7i BeanV^ 
are constantly replenished by fresh combatants from other 
vessels, even by the Swedes and soft Danes, now '' strong, 
upon the stronger side," — while Olaf, cut off from succor, 
stands almost alone upon the '"'' Serpcnfs'''' deck, made slip- 
pery by his people's blood. The Jarl had laid out boats 
to intercept all who might escape from the ship ; but es- 
cape is not in the King's thoughts. He casts one look 
around him, glances at his sword- — broken like Einar's 
bow — draws a deep breath, and, holding his shield above 
his head, springs overboard. A shout — a rush ! who shall 
first grasp that noble prisoner t Back, slaves ! the shield 
that has brought hrni scathless through a hundred fights, 
shall yet shelter him from dishonor. 

Countless hands are stretched to snatch him back to 
worthless life, but the shield alone floats on the swirl of 
the wave : — King Olaf has sunk beneath it. 

Perhaps you have already had enough of my Saga lore ; 
but with that grey cathedral full in sight, I cannot but dedi- 
cate a few lines to another Olaf, king and warrior like the 
last, but to whom after times have accorded a yet higher 
title. 

Saint Olaf s — Saint Olave, as we call him — early history 
savors little of the odor of sanctity, but has rather that 
" ancient and fish-like smell " which characterized the do- 
ings of the Vikings, his ancestors. But those were days 
when honor rather than disgrace attached to the ideas of 
booty and plunder, especially in an enemy's country ; it 
was a " spoiling of the Egyptians " sanctioned by custom, 
and even permitted by the Church, which did not disdain 
occasionally to share in the profits of a successful cruise, 
when presented in the decent form of silver candlesticks 
and other ecclesiastical gauds. As to the ancient historian, 



240 LETTERS FROM HIGH LATITUDES. [XII. 

he mentions these matters as a thing of course. " Here 
the King landed, burnt, and ravaged;" "there the Jarl 
gained much booty ; " " this summer, they took a cruise 
in the Baltic, to gather property," etc., much as a modern 
biographer would speak of a gentleman's successful rail- 
road speculations, his taking shares in a coal mine, or com- 
ing into a " nice little thing in the Long Annuities." 
Nevertheless, here is something significant of his future 
vocation, in a speech which Olaf makes to his assembled 
friends and relations, imparting to them his design of en- 
deavoring to regain possession of the throne : " I and 
my men have nothing for our support save what we cap- 
tured in \NdiX,for which we have hazarded both life and soul ; 
for many an innocent man have we deprived of his property, 
and some of their lives, and foreigners are now sitting in 
the possessions of my fathers." One sees here a faint 
glimmer of the Saint's nimbus, over the helmet of the 
Viking, a dawning perception of the "rights of property," 
which, no doubt, must have startled his hearers into the 
most ardent conservative zeal for the good old marauding 
customs. 

But though years elapsed, and fortunes changed, before 
this dim light of the early Church became that scorching 
and devouring flame which, later, spread terror and con- 
fusion among the haunts of the still lingering ancient gods, 
an earnest sense of duty seems to have been ever present 
with him. If it cannot be denied that he shared the errors 
of other proselytizing monarchs, and put down Paganism 
with a stern and bloody hand, no merely personal injury 
ever weighed with him. How grand is his reply to those 
who advise him to ravage with fire and sword the rebel- 
lious district of Throndhjem, as he had formerly punished 
numbers of his subjects who had rejected Christianity : — 
" We had then God's honor to defend ; but this treason 
against their sovereign is a much less grievous crime ; it 



XII.] OLAF THE SAINT. 241 

is more in my power to spare those who have dealt ill with 
me, than those whom God hated." The same hard meas- 
ure which he meted to others he applied to his own actions ; 
witness that curiously characteristic scene, when, sitting in 
his high seat, at table, lost in thought, he begins uncon- 
sciously to cut splinters from a piece of fir-wood which he 
held in his hand. The table servant seeing what the 
King was about, says to him (mark the respectful peri- 
phrasis !), " // is Monday^ Sire, to-morrow.^' The King 
looks at him, and it came into his mind what he was doing 
on a Sunday. He sweeps up the shavings he had made, 
set fire to them, and lets them burn on his naked hand ; 
" showing thereby that he would hold fast by God's law, 
and not trespass without punishment." 

But whatever human weakness may have mingled with 
the pure ore of this noble character, whatever barbarities 
may have stained his career, they are forgotten in the 
pathetic close of his martial story. 

His subjects — alienated by the sternness with which he 
administers his own severely religious laws, or corrupted by 
the bribes of Canute, King of Denmark and England — are 
fallen from their allegiance. The brave, single-hearted 
monarch is marching against the rebellious Bonders, at the 
head of a handful of foreign troops, and such as remained 
faithful among his own people. On the eve of that last 
battle, on which he stakes throne and life, he intrusts a large 
sum of money to a Bonder, to be laid out " on churches, 
priests, and almsmen, as gifts for the souls of such as may 
fall in battle against himself,'^ — strong in the conviction of 
the righteousness of his cause, and the assured salvation 
of such as upheld it. 

He makes a glorious end. Forsaken by many whom 
he had loved and served, yet forgiving and excusing them ; 
rejecting the aid of all who denied that holy Faith which 
had become the absorbing interest of his life, — but sur 

16 



242 LETTERS FROM HIGH LATITUDES. [XII. 

rounded by a faithful few, who share his fate ; " in the lost 
battle, borne down by the flying" — he falls, transpierced by 
many wounds, and the last words on his fervent lips are 
prayer to God.-^ 

Surely there was a gallant saint and soldier. Yet he 
was not the only one who bore himself nobly on that day. 
Here is another episode of that same fatal fight. 

A certain Thormod is one of the Scalds (or Poets) in 
King Olaf's army. The night before the battle he sings a 
spirited song at the King's request, who gives him a gold 
ring from his finger in token of his approval. Thormod 
thanks him for the gift, and says, " It is my prayer, Sire, 
that we shall never part, either in life or death." When 
the King receives his death-wound Thormod is near him, — 
but, wounded himself, and so weak and weary that in a 
desperate onslaught by the King's men, — nicknamed 
" Dags stor7n^^' — he only stood by his comrade in the ranks^ 
although he could do nothing. 

The noise of the battle has ceased ; the King is lying 
dead where he fell. The very man who had dealt him his 
death- wound has laid the body straight out on the ground, 
and spread a cloak over it. " And when he wiped the 
blood from the face it was very beautiful, and there was red 
in the cheeks, as if he only slept." 

Thormod, who had received a second wound as he 
stood in the ranks — (an arrow in hi-s side, which he breaks 
off at the shaft), — wanders away towards a large barn, 
where other wounded men have taken refuge. Entering 
with his drawn sword in his hand, he meets one of the 
Bonders coming out, who says, " It is very bad there, with 
howling and screaming ; and a great shame it is, that brisk 
young fellows cannot bear their wounds. The King's men 

1 The exact date of the battle of Sticklestad is known : an eclipse 
of the sun occurred while it was going on. 



XII.J THORMOD THE SCALD. 243 

may have done bravely to-day, but truly they bear their 
wounds ill." 

Thormod asks what his name is, and if he was in the 
battle, Kimbe was his name, and he had been " with the 
Bonders, which was the best side." "And hast thoubeen 
in the battle too ? " asks he of Thormod. 

Thormod replies, •" I was with them that had the best." 

'' Art thou wounded ? " says Knnbe. 

" Not much to signify," says Thormod. 

Kimbe sees the gold ring, and says, " Thou art a 
King's man : give me thy gold ring, and I will hide thee." 

Thormod replies, " Take the ring if thou canst get it ; 
I have lost that which is more worth.'''' 

Kimbe stretches out his hand to seize the ring ; but 
Thormod, swinging his sword, cuts off his hand ; and ii is 
related^ that Kimbe behaved no better under his wound 
than those he had just been blaming." 

Thormod then enters the house where the wounded are 
lying, and seats himself in silence by the door. 

As the people go in and out, one of them casts a look at 
Thormod, and says, " Why art thou so dead pale ? Art 
thou wounded ? " He answers carelessly, with a half-jest- 
ing rhyme, then rises and stands awhile by the fire. A 
woman, who is attending on those who are hurt, bids him 
"go out, and bring in firewood from the door." He returns 
with the wood, and the girl then looking him in the face, 
says, "Dreadfully pale is this man ;" and asks to see his 
wounds. She examines his wound in his side, and feels 
that the iron of the arrow is still there ; she then takes a 
pair of tongs and tries to pull it out, " but it sat too fast, 
and as the wound was swelled, little of it stood out to lay 
hold of." Thormod bids her " cut deep enough to reach 
the iron, and then to give him the tongs, and let him pull." 
She did as he bade. He takes the ring from his hand, and 
gives it to the girl, saying, " It is a good man's gift ! King 



244 LETTERS FROM HIGH LATITUDES. [XII. 

Olaf gave it to me this morning." Then Thormod took 
the tongs and pulled the iron out. The arrow-head was 
barbed, and on it there hung some morsels of flesh. When 
he saw that he said, " The King has fed us well I I am fat, 
even at the heart-roots ! '' And so saying, he leant back, 
and died.^ 

Stout, faithful heart ! if they gave you no place in your 
master's stately tomb, there is room for you by his side in 
heaven ! 

I have at last received — I need not say how joyfully — 
two letters from you ; one addressed to Hammerfest. I 
had begun to think that some Norwegian warlock had be- 
witched the post-bags, in the approved old ballad fashion, 
to prevent their rendering up my dues ; for when the 
packet of letters addressed to the ''''Foam " was brought on 
board, immediately after our arrival, I alone got nothing. 
From Sigurdr and the Doctor to the cabin-boy, every face 
was beaming over " news from home ! " while I was left to 
walk the deck, with my hands in my pockets, pretending 
not to care. But the spell is broken now, and I retract my 
evil thoughts of the warlock and you. 

Yesterday we made an excursion as far as Lade', saw a 
waterfall, which is one of the lions of this neighborhood 
(but a very mitigated lion, which " roars you as soft as any 
sucking dove "), and returned in the evening to attend a 
ball given to celebrate the visit of the Crown Prince. 

At Lade, I confess I could think of nothing but " the 
great Jarl" Hacon, the counsellor, and maker of kings, 
king himself in all but the name, for he ruled over the 
western sea-board of Norway, while Olaf Tryggvesson was 
yet a wanderer and exile. He is certainly one of the most 
picturesque figures of these Norwegian dramas ; what with 

1 When a man was wounded in the abdomen, it was the habit of the 
Norse leeches to give him an onion to eat ; by this means they learnt 
whether the weapon had perforated the viscera. 



XII.]" THE SWINE-STYLE. 245 

his rude wit, his personal bravery, and that hereditary- 
beauty of his race for which he was conspicuous above the 
rest. His very errors, great as they were, have a dash and 
prestige about them, which in that rude time must have 
dazzled men's eyes, and especially women's as his story 
proves. It was his sudden passion for the beautiful Gudrun 
Lyrgia (the " Sun of Lunde," as she was called), which pre- 
cipitated the avenging fate which years of heart-burnings 
and discontent among his subjects had been preparing. 
Gudrun's husband incites the Bonders to throw off the yoke 
of the licentious despot, — Olaf Tryggvesson is proclaimed 
king, — and the "great Jarl of Lade" is now a fugitive in 
the land he so lately ruled, accompanied by a single thrall, 
named Karker. 

In this extremity, Jarl Hacon applies for aid to Thora 
of Rimmol, a lady whom he had once dearly loved : she is 
faithful in adversity to the friend of happier days, and con- 
ceals the Jarl and his companion in a hole dug for this pur- 
pose, in the swine-stye, and covered over with wood and 
litter ; as the only spot likely to elude the hot search of his 
enemies. Olaf and the Bonders seek for him in Thora's 
house, but in vain ; and finally, Olaf, standing on the very 
stone against which the swine-stye is built, promises wealth 
and honors to him who shall bring him the Jarl of Lade's 
head. The scene which follows is related by the Icelandic 
historian with Dante's tragic power. 

There was a little daylight in their hiding-place, and the 
Jarl and Karker both hear the words of Olaf. 

"Why art thou so pale?" says the Jarl, "and now 
again as black as earth .? Thou dost not mean to betray 
me ? " 

" By no means," said Karker. 

" We were born on the same night," said the Jarl, " and 
the time will not be long between our deaths." 

When night came, the Jarl kept himself awake ; but 



246 LETTERS FROM HIGH LA TI TUBES. [XII. 

Karker slept ; — a troubled sleep. The Jarl awoke him, 
and asked of what he was dreaming. He answered, " I 
was at Lade, and Olaf was laying a gold ring about my 
neck." 

The Jarl said, '' It will be a red ring about thy neck, if 
he catches thee : from me thou shalt enjoy all that is good, 
— therefore, betray me not ! " 

Then they both kept themselves awake ; " the one, as it 
were, watching upon the other.'' But towards day, the Jarl 
dropped asleep, and in his unquiet slumber he drew his 
heels under him, and raised his neck as if going to rise, 
"and shrieked fearfully." On this, Karker, "dreadfully 
alarmed," drew a knife from his belt, stuck it into the Jarl's 
throat, and cut off his head. Late in the day he came to 
Lade, brought the Jarl's head to Olaf, and told his story. 

It is a comfort to know that " the red ring'' was laid 
round the traitor's neck : Olaf caused him to be beheaded. 

What a picture that is, in the swine-stye, those two hag- 
gard faces, travel-stained and worn with want of rest, 
watching each other with hot, sleepless eyes through the 
half darkness, and how true to nature is the nightmare of 
the miserable Jarl ! 

It was on my return from Lade, that I found your let- 
ters ; and that I might enjoy them without interruption, I 
carried them off to the churchyard — (such a beautiful 
place !) — to read in peace and quiet. The churchyard was 
not " populous with young men, striving to be alone," as 
Tom Hood describes it to have been in a certain senti- 
mental parish ; so I enjoyed the seclusion I anticipated. 

I was much struck by the loving care and ornament be- 
stowed on the graves ; some were literally loaded with 
flowers, and even those which bore the date of a long past 
sorrow had each its own blooming crown, or fresh nosegay. 
These good Throndhjemers must have much of what the 
French call la religion des souvenirs^ a religion in which we 



XII.] HARALD HARDRADA. 247 

English (as a nation) are singularly deficient. I suppose 
no people in Europe are so little addicted to the keeping 
of sentimental anniversaries as we are ; I make an excep- 
tion with regard to our living friends' birthdays, which we 
are ever tenderly ready to cultivate, when called on ; turtle, 
venison, and champagne, being pleasant investments for 
the affections. But time and business do not admit of a 
faithful adherence to more sombre reminiscences ; a busy 
gentleman " on 'Change " cannot conveniently shut himself 
up, on his " lost Araminta's natal-day," nor will a railroad 
committee allow of his running down by the 10.25 a. m., 
to shed a tear over that neat tablet in the new Willow-cum- 
Hatband Cemetery. He is necessarily content to regret 
his Araminta in the gross, and to omit the petty details of 
a too pedantic sorrow. 

The fact is, we are an eminently practical people, and 
are easily taught to accept "the irrevocable," if not without 
regret, at least with a philosophy which repudiates all su- 
perfluous methods of showing it. Decent is the usual and 
appropriate term applied to our churchyard solemnities, 
and we are not only " content to dwell in decencies for 
ever," but to die, and be buried in them. 

The cathedral loses a little of its poetical physiognomy 
on a near approach. Modern restoration has done some- 
thing to spoil the outside, and modern refinement a good 
deal to degrade the interior with pews and partitions ; but 
it is a very fine building, and worthy of its metropolitan 
dignity. I am told that the very church built by Magnus 
the Good — son of Saint Olave — over his father's remains, 
and finished by his uncle Harald Hardrada, is, or rather 
was, included in the walls of the cathedral ; and though 
successive catastrophes by fire have perhaps left but little 
of the original building standing, I like to think that some 
of these huge stones were lifted to their place under the 
eyes of Harald the Stern. It was on the eve of his last 



248 LETTERS FROM HIGH LATITUDES. [XII. 

fatal expedition against our own Harold of England that 
the shrine of St. Olave was opened by the King, who, hav- 
ing clipped the hair and nails of the dead saint (most prob- 
ably as relics, efficacious for the protection of himself and 
followers), then- locked the shrine, and threw the keys into 
the Nid. Its secrets from that day were respected until 
the profane hands of Lutheran Danes carried it bodily 
away, with all the gold and silver chalices, and jewelled 
pyxes, which, by kingly gifts and piratical offerings, had 
accumulated for centuries in its treasury. 

He must have been a fine, resolute fellow, that Harald 
the Stern, although, in spite of much church-building and 
a certain amount of Pagan-persecuting, his character did 
not in any way emulate that of his saintly brother. The 
early part of his history reads like a fairy tale, and is a fa- 
vorite subject for Scald songs ; more especially his romantic 
adventures in the East, — 

" Well worthy of the golden prime 
Of good Haroun Alraschid ; " 

where Saracens flee like chaff upon the wind before him, 
and impregnable Sicilian castles fall into his power by im- 
possible feats of arms, or incredible stratagems. A Greek 
empress, '' the mature Zoe," as Gibbon calls her, falls in 
love with him, and her husband, Constantine Monomachus, 
puts him in prison ; but Saint Olaf still protects his inaii- 
vais siijet of a brother, and inspires " a lady of distinction" 
with the successful idea of helping Elarald out of his inac- 
cessible tower by the prosaic expedient of a ladder of ropes. 
A boom, however, across the harbor's mouth still prevents 
the escape of his vessel. The Sea-king is not to be so 
easily baffled. Moving all his ballast, arms, and men into 
the afterpart of the ship, until her stem slants up out of 
the sea, he rows straight at the iron chain. The ship leaps 
almost half-way over. The weight being then immediately 



XII.J THE BATTLE OF STANFORD BRIDGE. 249 

transferred to the fore-part, the ship slips down into the 
water on the other side ; having topped the fence Uke an 
Irish hunter. A second galley breaks her back in the at- 
tempt. After some questionable acts of vengeance on the 
Greek court, Harald and his bold Vaeringers go fighting 
and plundering their way through the Bosphorus and Black 
Sea back to Novogorod, where the first part of the romance 
terminates, as it should, by his marriage with the object of 
his secret attachment, Elisof, the daughter of the Russian 
king. 

Hardrada's story darkens towards the end, as most of 
the tales of that stirring time are apt to do. His death on 
English ground is so striking, that you must have patience 
with one other short Saga : it will give you the battle of 
Stanford Bridge from the Norse point of view. 

The expedition against Harold of England commences 
ill ; dreams and omens affright the fleet ; one man dreams 
he sees a raven sitting on the stern of each vessel j another 
sees the fair English coast ; 

" But glancing shields 
Hide the green fields ; " 

and other fearful phenomena mar the beautiful vision. 
Harald himself dreams that he is back again at Nidaros, 
and that his brother Olaf meets him with a prophecy of 
ruin and death. The bold Norsemen are not to be daunt- 
ed by these auguries, and their first successes on the Eng- 
lish coast seem to justify their persistence. But on a cer- 
tain beautiful Monday in September (a. d. 1066, according 
to the Saxon Chronicle), part of his army being encamped 
at Stanford Bridge, " Hardrada, having taken breakfast^ or- 
dered the trumpets to sound for going on shore ; " but he 
left half his force behind, to guard the ships : and his men, 
anticipating no resistance from the castle, which had already 
surrendered, " went on shore (the weather being hot), with 



250 LE TIERS FROM HIGH LA TI TUBES [XII. 

only their helmets, shields, and spears, and girt with swords ; 
some had bows and arrows, — and all were very merry." 
On nearing the castle, they see " a cloud of dust as from 
horses' feet, and under it shining shields and bright armor." 
English Harold's army is before them. Hardrada sends 
back to his ship for succor, and sets up his banner, "Land 
Ravager," undismayed by the inequality of his force, and 
their comparatively unarmed condition. The men on each 
side are drawn up in battle array, and the two kings in 
presence ; each gazes eagerly to discover his noble foe 
among the multitude. Harald Hardrada's black horse 
stumbles and falls ; " the King got up in haste, and said, 
' A fall is lucky for a traveller.' " 

The English King said to the Northmen who were with 
him, " Do you know the stout man who fell from his horse, 
with the blue kirtle, and beautiful helmet ? " 

" That is the Norwegian King," said they. 

English Harold replied, " A great man, and of stately 
appearance is he ; but I think his luck has left him." 

And now twenty gallant English knights ride out of 
their ranks to parley with the Northmen. One advances 
beyond the rest and asks if Earl Toste, the brother of Eng- 
lish Harold (who has banded with his enemy against him), 
is with the army. 

The Earl himself proudly answers, " It is not to be 
denied that you will find him here." 

The Saxon says, " Thy brother, Harold, sends his salu- 
tation, and offers thee the third part of his kingdom, if 
thou wilt be reconciled and submit to him." 

The Earl replies, at the suggestion of the Norse King, 
" What will my brother the King give to Harald Hardrada 
for his trouble ? " 

" He will give him," says the Knight, " seven feet of 
English ground^ or as much more as he may be taller than 
other men.'''' 



XII.] A BALL AT THRONDHJEM. 251 

"Then," sa3-s the Earl, "let the English King, my 
brother, make ready for battle, for it never shall be said 
that Earl Toste broke faith with his friends when they came 
with him to fight west here in England." 

When the knights rode off. King Harald Hardrada 
asked the Earl, " Who was the man who spoke so well .'' " 

The Earl replied, " That knight was Harold of Eng- 
land." 

The stern Norwegian King regrets that his enemy had 
escaped from his hands, owing to his ignorance of this 
fact j but even in his first burst of disappointment, the 
noble Norse nature speaks in .generous admiration of his 
foe, saying to the people about him, " That was but a little 
man, yet he sat firmly in his stirrups." 

The fierce but unequal combat is soon at an end ; and 
when tardy succor arrives from the ships, Harald Har- 
drada is lying on his face, with the deadly arrow in his 
throat, never to see Nidaros again. Seven feet of English 
earth, and no more, has the strong arm and fiery spirit 
conquered. 

But enough of these gallant fellows ; I must carry you 
off to a much pleasanter scene of action. After a very 

agreeable dinner with Mr. K , who has been most kind 

to us, we adjourned to the ball. The room was large and 
well lighted — plenty of pretty faces adored it ; — the floor 
was smooth, and the scrape of the fiddles had a festive 

accent so extremely inspiriting, that I besought Mr. K 

to present me to one of the fair personages whose tiny feet 
were already tapping the floor with impatience at their own 
inactivity. 

I was led up in due form to a very pretty lady, and 
heard my own name, followed by a singular sound purport- 
ing to be that of my charming partner, Madame Hghelgh- 
ghagUaghem. For the pronunciation of this polysyllabic 
cognomen, I can only give you a few plain instructions ; 



252 LE TTERS FROM HIGH LA TITUDES. [XI I. 

commence it with a slight cough, continue with a gurgling 
in the throat, and finish with the first convulsive movement 
of a sneeze, imparting to the whole operation a delicate 
nasal twang. If the result is not something approaching 
to the sound required, you must relinquish all hope of 
achieving it, as I did. Luckily, my business was to dance, 
and not to apostrophize the lady ; and accordingly, when 
the waltz struck up, I hastened to claim, in the dumbest 
show, the honor of her hand. Although my dancing qual- 
ifications have rather rusted during the last two or three 
years, I remembered that the time was not so very far distant 

when even the fair Mad''^^'^- E had graciously pronounced 

me to be a very tolerable waltzer, "for an Englishman," 
and I led my partner to the circle already formed with the 
" air capable''' which the object of such praise is entitled to 
assume. There was a certain languid rhythm in the air 
they were playing which rather offended my ears, but I 
suspected nothing until^ observing the few couples who had 
already descended into the arena, I became aware that 
they were twirling about with all the antiquated grace of 
*V<:z valse a trois temps.''' Of course my partner would be no 
exception to the general rule ! nobody had ever danced 
anything else at Throndhjem from the days of Odin down- 
wards ; and I had never so much as attempted it. What 
was to be done .? I could not explam the state of the case 
to Madame Hghelghghagllaghem : she could not understand 
English, nor I speak Norse. My brain reeled with anxiety 
to find some solution of the difficulty, or some excuse for 
rushing from her presence. What if I were taken with a 
sudden bleeding at the nose, or had an apopletic fit on the 
spot ? Either case would necessitate my being carried 
decently out, and consigned to oblivion, which would have 
been a comfort, under the circumstances. There was noth- 
ing for It but the courage of despair ; so, casting reflection 
to the winds, .and my arm round her waist, I suddenly 



XII.] ODIN AND HIS PALADINS. 253 

whisked her off her legs, and dnshed madly down the room. 
" a deux tevips^ At the first perception that something 
unusual was going on, she gave such an eldritch scream, 
that the whole society suddenly came to a standstill. I 
thought it best to assume an aspect of innocent composure 
and conscious rectitude ; which had its effect, for though 
the lady began with a certain degree of hysterical anima- 
tion to describe her wrongs, she finished with a hearty 
laugh, in which the company cordially joined, and I deli- 
cately chimed in. For the rest of the dance she seemed 
to resign herself to her fate, and floated through space, 
under my guidance, with all the abandon of Francesca di 
Rimini, in Scheffer's famous picture. 

The Crown Prince is a tall, fine-looking person : he was 
very gracious, and asked many questions about my voyage. 

At night there was a general illumination, to which the 
" Foam " contributed some blue lights. 

We got under way early this morning, and without a 
pilot — as we had entered — made our way out to sea again. 
I left Throndhjem with regret, not for its own sake, for in 
spite of balls and illuminations I should think the pleasures 
of a stay there would not be deliriously exciting ; but this 
whole district is so intimately associated in my mind with 
all the brilliant episodes of ancient Norwegian History, 
that I feel as if I were taking leave of all those noble 
Haralds, and Olafs, and Hacons, among whom I have 
been living in such pleasant intimacy for some time past. 

While we are dropping down the coast, I may as well 
employ the time in giving you a rapid sketch of the com- 
mencement of this fine Norse people, though the story 
'^remontejusgu'a la niiit des temps'' and has something of 
the vague magnificence of your own M'Donnell genealogy, 
ending a long list of great potentates, with " somebody, 
who was the son of somebody else, who was the son of 
Scotha, who was the daughter of Pharaoh ! " 



254 LETTERS FROM HIGH LATITUDES, [XII, 

In by-gone ages, be3^oncl the Scythian plains and the 
fens of the Tanais, in that land of the morning, to which 
neither Grecian letters nor Roman arms had ever pene- 
trated, there was a great city called Asgaard. Of its founder, 
of its history, we know notiiing ; but, looming through the 
mists of antiquity, we can discern an heroic figure, whose 
superior attainments won for him the lordship of his own 
generation, and divine honors from those that succeeded. 
Whether moved by an irresistible impulse, or impelled by 
more poweiful neighbors, it is impossible to say ; but 
certain it is that at some period, not perhaps very long 
before the Christian era, under the guidance of this per- 
sonage, a sun-nurtured people moved across the face of 
Europe, in a north-westerly direction, and after leaving 
settlements along the southern shores of the Baltic, finally 
established themselves in the forests and valleys of what 
has come to be called the Scandinavian Peninsula. That 
children of the South should have sought out so inclement 
a habitation may excite surprise ; but it must always be 
remembered that they were, probably, a comparatively scanty 
congregation, and that the unoccupied valleys of Norway 
and Sweden, teeming with fish and game, and rich in iron, 
were a preferable region to lands only to be colonised 
after they had been conquered. 

Thus, under the leadership of Odin and his twelve Pala- 
dins, — to whoin a grateful posterity afterwards conceded 
thrones in the halls of their chief's Valhalla, — the nev/ 
emigrants spread themselves along the margin of the out- 
ocean, and round about the gloomy fiords, and up and 
down the deep valleys that fall away at right angles from 
the backbone, or keel^ as the seafaring population soon 
learnt to call the flat, snow-capped ridge that runs down 
the centre of Norway. 

Amid the rude but not ungenial influences of its bracing 
climate, was gradually fostered that gallant race which was 



XII.] THE BONDERS. 255 

destined to give an imperial dynasty to Russia, a nobility 
to England, the conquerors to every sea-board in Europe. 

Upon the occupation of their new home, the ascendency 
ofthat mysterious hero, under whose auspices the settlement 
was conducted, appears to have remained more firmly estab- 
lished than ever, not only over the mass of the people, but 
also over the twelve surbordinate chiefs who accompanied 
him; there never seems to have been the slightest attempt 
to question his authority, and, though afterwards themselves 
elevated into an order of celestial beings, every tradition 
which has descended is careful to maintain his human and 
divine supremacy. Through the obscurity, the exaggera- 
tion, and the ridiculous fables, with which his real existence 
has been overloaded, we can still see that this man evidently 
possessed a genius as superior to his contemporaries, as 
has ever given to any child of man the ascendency over his 
generation. In the simple language of the old chronicler, 
we are told, " that his countenance was so beautiful that 
when sitting among his friends, the spirits of all were ex- 
hilarated by it ; that when he spoke, all were persuaded ; 
that when he went forth to meet his enemies, none could 
withstand him," Though subsequently made a god by the 
superstitious people he had benefitted, his death seems to 
have been noble and religious. He summoned his friends 
around his pillow, intimated a belief in the immortality of his 
soul, and his hope that hereafter they should meet again 
in Paradise. " Then," we are told, " began the belief in 
Odin, and their calling upon him." 

On the settlement of the country, the land was divided 
and subdivided into lots — some as small as fifty acres — and 
each proprietor held his share — as their descendants do to 
this day — by udal right ; that is, not as a fief of the Crown, 
or of any superior lord, but in absolute, inalienable posses- 
sion, by the same udal right as the kings wore their crowns, 
to be transmitted, under the same title, to their descendants 
unto all generations. 



256 LEI TERS FROM HIGH LA TI TUBES. [XII. 

These landed proprietors were called the Bonders, and 
formed the chief strength of the realm. It was they, their 
friends and servants, or thralls, who constituted the army. 
Without their consent the king could do nothing. On 
stated occasions they met together, in solemn assembly, or 
Thing, {i.e. Parliament,) as it was called, for the transaction 
of public business, the administration of justice, the allot- 
ment of the scatt, or taxes. 

Without a solemn induction at the Ore or Great Thinof, 
even the most legitimately-descended sovereign could not 
mount the throne, and to that august assembly an appeal 
might ever lie against his authority. 

To these Things, and to the Norse invasion that im- 
planted them, and not to the Wittenagemotts of the Latin- 
ized Saxons, must be referred the existence of those Parlia- 
ments which are the boast of Englishmen. 

Noiselessly and gradually did a belief in liberty, and an 
unconquerable love of independence, grow up among that 
simple people. No feudal despots oppressed the unpro- 
tected, for all were noble and udal born ; no standing armies 
enabled the Crown to set popular opinion at defiance, for 
the swords of the Bonders sufficed to guard the realm \ no 
military barons usurped an illegitimate authority, for the 
nature of the soil forbade the erection of feudal fortresses. 
Over the rest of Europe despotism rose up rank under the 
tutelage of a corrupt religion ; while, year after year, amid 
the savage scenery of its Scandinavian nursery, that great 
race was maturing whose genial heartiness was destined to 
invigorate the sickly civilization of the Saxon with inex- 
haustible energy, and preserve to the world, even in the 
nineteenth century, one glorious example of a free European 
people. 



LETTER XIII. 



COPENHAGEN BERGEN THE BLACK DEATH SIGURDR 

HOMEWARDS. 

Copenhagen, Sept. 12th, 1856. 

Our adventures since the date of my last letter have not 
been of an exciting character. We had fine weather and 
prosperous winds down the coast, and stayed a day at 
Christiansund, and another at Bergen. But though the 
novelty of the cruise had ceased since our arrival in lower 
latitudes, there was always a certain raciness and oddity in 
the incidents of our coasting voyage ; such as — waking in 
the morning, and finding the schooner brought up under 
the lee of a wooden house, or — riding out a foul wind with 
your hawser rove through an iron ring in the sheer side of 
a mountain, — which took from the comparative flatness of 
daily life on board. 

Perhaps the queerest incident was a visit paid us at 
Christiansund. As I was walking the deck 1 saw a boat 
coming off, with a gentleman on board ; she was soon 
along-side the schooner, and as I was gazing down on this 
individual, and wondering what he wanted, I saw him sud- 
denly lift his feet lightly over the gunwale and plunge them 
into the water, boots and all. After cooling his heels in 
this way for a minute or so, he laid hold of the side ropes 
and gracefully swung himself on deck. Upon this, Sigurdr, 
who always acted interpreter on such occasions, advanced 
towards him, and a colloquy followed, which terminated 
rather abruptly in Sigurdr walking aft, and the web-footed 

17 257 



258 LETTERS FROM HIGH LA TITUDES. [XIII. 

Stranger clucking clown into his boat again. It was not till 
some hours later that the indignant Sigurdr explained the 
meaning of the visit. Although not a naval character, this 
gentleman certainly came into the category of men " who 
do business in great waters," his hiismess being to negotiate 
a loan; in short, to ask me tO- lend him ;^ioo. There 
must have been something very innocent and confiding in 
"the cut of our jib " to encourage his boarding us on such 
an errand ; or perhaps it was the old marauding, toll-taking 
sjDirit coming out strong in him : the politer influences of 
the nineteenth century toning down the ancient Viking into 
a sort of a cross between Paul Jones and Jeremy Diddler. 
The seas which his ancestors once swept with their galleys, 
he now sweeps with his telescope, and with as keen an eye 
to \h^ main chance as any of his predecessors displayed. 
The feet-washing ceremony was evidently a propitiatory 
homage to the purity of my quarter-deck. 

Bergen, with its pale-faced houses grouped on the brink 
of the fiord, like invalids at a German Spa, though pic- 
turesque in its way, with a cathedral of its own, and plenty 
of churches, looked rather tame and spiritless after the 
warmer coloring of Throndhjem ; moreover it wanted nov- 
elty to me, as I called in there two years ago on my return 
from the Baltic. It was on that occasion that I became 
possessed of my ever-to-be-lamented infant walrus. 

No one, personally unacquainted with that "most deli- 
cate monster," can have any idea of his attaching qualities. 
I own that his figure was not strictly symmetrical j that he 
had a roll in his gait, suggestive of heavy seas ; that he 
would not have looked well in your boudoir : but he never 
seemed out of place on my quarter-deck, and every man on 
board loved him as a brother. With what a languid grace 
he would wallow and roll in the water, when we chucked 
him overboard ; and paddle and splash, and make himself 
thoroughly cool and comfortable, and then come and "beg 



XI 1 1.] THE WALRUS. 259 

to be taken up," like a fat baby, and allow the rope to be 
slipped round his extensive waist, and come up — sleek and 
dripping — among us again with a contented grunt, as much 
as to say, "Well, after all, there's no place like home f'' 
How he would compose himself to placid slumber in every 
possible inconvenient place, with his head on the binnacle 
(especially when careful steering was a matter of moment), 
or across the companion entrance, or the cabin skylight, or 
on the shaggy back of " Sailor," the Newfoundland, who 
positively abhorred him. But how touching it was to see 
him waddle up and down the deck after Mr. Wyse, whom 
he evidently regarded in a maternal point of view — begging 
for milk with the most expressive snorts and grunts, and 
embarrassing my good-natured master by demonstrative 
appeals to his fostering offices ! 

I shall never forget Mr. Wyse's countenance that day 
in Ullapool Bay, when he tried to command his feelings 
sufficiently to acquaint me • with the creature's death, which 
he announced in this graphic sentence, " Ah, my Lord ! — 
the poor thing ! — toes up at last I " 

Bergen is not as neat and orderly in its architectural 
arrangements as Drontheim ; a great part of the city is a 
confused network of narrow streets and alleys, much resem- 
bling, I should think, its early inconveniences, in the days 
of Olaf Kyrre. This close and stifling system of street 
building must have ensured fatal odds against the chances 
of life in some of those world-devastating plagues- that 
characterize past ages. Bergen was, in fact, nearly depopu- 
lated by that terrible pestilence which, in 1349, ravaged the 
North of Europe, and whose memory is still preserved un- 
der the name of " The Black Death." 

I have been tempted to enclose you a sort of ballad, 
which was composed while looking on the very scene of 
this disastrous event ; its only merit consists in its local in- 
spiration, and in its conveying a true relation of the man- 
ner in which the plague entered the doomed city. 



2 6o LE TTERS FROM HIGH LA TITUDES. [XIII. 

THE BLACK DEATH OF BERGEN. 



What can ail the Bergen Burghers 

That they leave their stoups of wine ? 
Flinging up the hill like jagers, 

At the hour they're wont to dine ! 
See, the shifting groups are fringing 

Rock and ridge with gay attire, 
Bright as Northern streamers tinging 

Peak and crag with fitful fire ! 



Towards the cliff their steps are bending, 

Westward turns their eager gaze, 
Whence a stately ship ascending. 

Slowly cleaves the golden haze. 
Landward floats the apparition — 

" Is it, call it be the same .'' " 
Frantic cries of recognition 

Shout a long-lost vessel's name ! 

III. 

Years ago had she departed — 

Castled poojD and gilded stern ; 
Weeping women, broken-hearted, 

Long had waited her return. 
When the midnight sun wheeled downwards. 

But to kiss the ocean's verge — 
When the noonday sun, a moment 

Peeped above the Wintry surge, 



Childless mothers, orphaned daughters, 

From the seaward-facing crag, 
Vainly searched the vacant waters 

For that unreturning flag ! 
But, suspense and tears are ended, 

Lo ! it floats upon the breeze ! 
Ne'er from eager hearts ascended 

Thankful prayers as warm as these 



XIII.] THE BLACK DEATH, 261 



See the good ship proudly rounding 

That last point that blocks the view ; 
" Strange ! no answering cheer resounding 

From the long home-parted crew ! " 
Past the harbor's stony gateway, 

Onwards borne by sucking tides, 
Tho' the light wind faileth — straightway 

Into port she safely glides. 



Swift, as by good angels carried, 
Right and left the news has spread, 

Wives long widowed — yet scarce married- 
Brides that never hoped to wed. 

From a hundred pathways meeting 
Crowd along the narrow quay. 

Maddened by the hope of meeting 
Those long counted cast away. 



Soon a crowd of small boats flutter 

O'er the intervening space, 
Bearing hearts too full to utter 

Thoughts that flush the eager face ! 
See young Eric foremost gaining — 

(For a father's love athirst !) 
Every nerve and muscle straining, 

But to touch the dear \v3sA first. 



In the ship's green shadow rocking 

Lies his little boat at last : 
"Wherefore is the warm heart knocking 

At his side, so loud and fast ? 
" What strange aspect is she wearing, 

Vessel once so taut and trim ? 
Shout ! — my heart has lost its daring ; 

Comrades, search ! — my eyes are dim. 



262 LETTERS FROM HIGH LATITUDES. [XIII. 



Sad the search, and fearful finding ! 

On the deck lay parched and dry- 
Men — who in some burning, blinding 

Clime — had laid them down to die ! 
Hands — prayer-clenched — that would not sever, 

Eyes that stared against the sun, 
Sighs that haunt the soul for ever, 

Poisoning life — till life is done ! 



Strength from fear doth Eric gather, 

Wide the cabin door he threw — 
Lo ! the face of his dead father, 

Stern and still, confronts his view ! 
Stately as in life he bore him, 

Seated — motionless and grand ; 
On the blotted page before him 

Lingers still the livid hand ! 



What sad entry was he making. 

When the death-stroke fell at last ? 
" Is it then God's will, in taking 

All, that I am left the last ? 
I have closed the cabin doorway, 

That I may not see them die : — 
Would our bones might rest in Norway,- 

'Neath our own cool Northern sky ! " 



Then the ghastly log-book told them 

How — in some accursed clime, 
Where the breathless land-swell rolled them, 

For an endless age of time — 
Sudden broke the plague among them, 

'Neath that sullen Tropic sun ; 
As if fiery scorpions stung them — 

Died they raving, one by one ! 



XIII.] THE BLA CK DEA TH. 263 



-Told the vain and painful striving, 

By shot-weighted shrouds to hide 
(Last fond care), from those surviving, 

What good comrade last had died ; 
Yet the ghastly things kept shovi^ing, 

Waist deep in the unquiet grave — 
To each other gravely bowing 

On the slow swing of the wave ! 



Eric's boat is near the landing — 

From that dark ship bring they aught ? 
In the stern sheets one is standing, 

Though their eyes perceive him not ; 
But a curdling horror creepeth 

Thro' their veins, with icy darts, 
And each hurried oar-stroke keepeth 

Time with their o'er-laboring hearts ! 

XV. 

Heavy seems their boat returning, 

Weighed with a world of care! 
Oh, ye blind ones — none discerning 

What the spectral freight ye bear. 
Glad they hear the sea-beach grating 

Harsh beneath the small boat's stem — 
Forth they leap, for no man waiting — 

But the Black Death lands with them. 



Viewless — soundless — stalks the spectre 

Thro' the city chill and pale. 
Which like bride, this morn, had decked her 

For the advent of that sail. 
Oft by Bergen women, mourning, 

Shall the dismal tale be told, 
Of that lost ship home returning, 

With " The Black Death " in her hold ! 

I would gladly dwell on the pleasures of my second 
visit to Christiansund, which has a charm of its own, inde- 



264 LETTERS FROM HIGH LATITUDES. [XIII. 

pendent of its interest as the spot from whence we really 
" start for home." But though strange lands, and unknown 
or indifferent people, are legitimate subjects for travellers' 
tales, our friends and their pleasant homes are not ; so I 
shall keep all I have to say of gratitude to our excellent 
and hospitable Consul, Mr. Morch, and of admiration for 
his charming v/ife, until I can tell you viva voce how much 
I wished that you also knew them. 

And now though fairly off from Norway, and on our 
homeward way, it was a tedious business — what with fogs, 
calms, and headwinds — working towards Copenhagen. We 
rounded the Scaw in a thick mist, saw the remains of four 
ships that had run aground upon it, and were nearly run 
into ourselves by a clumsy merchantman, whom we had 
the relief of being able to abuse in our native vernacular, 
and the most racy sea-slang. 

Those five last days w^ere certainly the only tedious 
periods of the whole cruise. I suppose there is something 
magnetic in the soil of one's own country, which may ac- 
count for that impatient desire to see it again, which al- 
ways grows, as the distance from it diminishes ; if so, Lon- 
don clay, — and its superstratum of foul, greasy, gas-dis- 
colored mud — began about this time to exercise a tender 
influence upon me, which has been increasing every hour 
since ; it is just possible that the thoughts of seeing you 
again may have some share in the matter. 

Somebody (I think Fuller) says somewhere, that " every 
one with whom you converse, and every place wherein you 
tarry awhile, giveth somewhat to you, and taketh somewhat 
away, either for evil or for good ; " a startling considera- 
tion for circumnavigators, and such like restless spirits j 
but a comfortable thought, in some respects, for voyagers 
to Polar regions, as (except seals and bears) few things 
could suffer evil from us there ; though for our own parts, 
there were solemn and wholesome influences enough " to 



XIII.] SIGURDR. 265 

be taken away" from those icy solitudes, if one were but 
ready and willing to " stow " them. 

To-morrow I leave Copenhagen, and my good Sigurdr, 
whose companionship has been a constant source of en- 
joyment, both to Fitz and myself, during the whole voyage ; 
I trust that I leave with him a friendly remembrance of 
our too short connexion, and pleasant thoughts of the 
strange places and things we have seen together ; as I 
take away with me a most affectionate memory of his frank 
and kindly nature, his ready sympathy, and his impertur- 
bable good humor. From the day on which I shipped 
him — an entire stranger — until this eve of our separation 
— as friends, through scenes of occasional discomfort, and 
circumstances which might sometimes have tried both tem- 
per and spirits — shut up as we were for four months in the 
necessarily close communion of life on board a vessel of 
eighty tons, — there has never been the shadow of a cloud 
between us; henceforth, the words "an Icelander" can 
convey no cold or ungenial associations to my ears, and 
however much my imagination has hitherto delighted in 
the past history of that singular island, its Present will 
always claim a deeper and warmer interest from me, for 
Sigurdr's sake. 

To-morrow Fitz and I start for Hamburg, and very 
soon after — at least as soon as railroad and steamer can 
bring me — I look for the joy of seeing your face again. 

By the time this reaches Portsmouth, the " Foam " will 
have performed a voyage of six thousand miles. 

I have had a most happy time of it, but I fear my amuse- 
ment will have cost you many a weary hour of anxiety and 
suspense. 



266 



LETTERS FROM HIGH LATITUDES. 



[XIII. 




TO THE 



FIGURE-HEAD OF "THE FOAM.' 



Calm sculptured image of as sweet a face 
As ever lighted up an English home, — 

Whose mute companionship has deigned to grace 
Our wanderings o'er a thousand leagues of foam,- 



Our progress was your triumph duly hailed 
By ocean's inmates ; herald dolphins played 

Before our stem, tall ships that sunward sailed 
With stately curtseys due obeisance paid. 



Fair Fortune's fairer harbinger ! you smoothed 
Our way before us, through the frantic fling 

Of roystering waves — as once Athene soothed 
The deeps that raged around the wandering King 



Xiri.] FIGURE-HEAD OF " THE FOAM." 267 

IV. 

The scowling temiDcst rose in vain to clutch 

His forked bolts ; you smiled, — they harmless turned 

To sheets of splendor at his palsied touch, 
And all their anger perished ere it burned. 



Now tinkling waves a peal of welcome rang 
Against the sheathing of our brazen bows. 

No gladder hymn the rosy Nereids sang, 
When, clad in sunshine, Aphrodite rose. 



Anon, a mightier passion stirred the deep — 

Presumptuous billows scaled the quivering deck 
Up to your very lips would dare to leap, 
And fling their silver arms about your neck ; 



The uncouth winds stole kisses from your cheek, 
Then, wild with exultation, hurried on, 

And boasting bade their laggard comrades seek 
The momentary bliss themselves had won. 



Who, following, filled our prosperous sails until 
We reached eternal winter's drear domain. 

Where suns of June but frozen light distil. 
And, bafiied, quickly abdicate their reign. 



Yet even here your gracious beauty shed 

Deep calm; old Ocean slumbered 'neath its spell 

And Summer seemed to follow where you led, 
As loth to bid your kindred smile farewell. 



The ominous shapes of drifting ice, that pack 
The desolate channels of the polar flood. 

Clustered like wolves around our Northward track, 
Till swayed by that sweet power to altered mood, 



2 68 LETTERS FROM HIGH LATITUDES. [XIII. 

XI. 

They cowered, and ranged themselves on either side, 
Like vassal ranks who watch some passing Queen 

Through her white columned halls in silence glide, 
Nor mingling meet till she no more is seen. 



THE END. 



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